


Intermezzo

by TwilightKnight17



Series: Hours 'Verse [7]
Category: Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brief Mention of Suicide, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, bridging the gap between P4 and P5, headcanons abound, sort of slice of life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-01-04 06:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 46,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightKnight17/pseuds/TwilightKnight17
Summary: When “normal” is already strange enough as it is, it’s easy not to see things changing slowly before your eyes. A shadow arena, a midnight stage, a long-awaited reunion…Two children, walking towards their places as pawns. Society, veering unnoticed onto the path to ruin. And those with their feet in two worlds, teaching those who have never lived in Reality how to cope.(Assembling the gameboard, one piece at a time.)





	1. April 8th, 2012

**Author's Note:**

> Intermezzo: n.  
> 1\. A short, connecting musical section between two acts of a play  
> 2\. A chess term for a tactic in which the player, instead of performing the expected move, first makes a different move to cause a more immediate threat, and only then continues with the expected plan

There was no one in the station when the train rolled in very early Sunday morning, but unlike this time last year, Yu wasn’t bothered by it. His uncle’s car was in the parking lot, and Dojima himself was leaning against it, waiting for him. He dragged his suitcase and backpack to the car, and Dojima gave him a hug.

“Good to see you, Yu. Did you have a safe trip?”

“Easy,” Yu replied. “Yukari-chan was right when she came to visit before. There’s no one on the trains when it’s this early.” He’d had basically the entire train to himself, and had taken the opportunity to catch up on the sleep he’d missed from getting up at an ungodly hour of the morning. “No one else knows I’m here, right?”

“The plan is proceeding as discussed,” Dojima chuckled, hefting his suitcase into the trunk. “Nanako’s still asleep, and your other friends still think you won’t be back until Golden Week. The only one who might suspect is Marie-chan, but she’s magic or something, so she probably sensed the second you crossed the town line.”

Yu sighed. “Probably. As long as she doesn’t spoil it for the others, it should be fine, though.” Margaret had called a week prior to let him know that Marie was back in Inaba, so he was excited to see her almost more than the rest of his friends. He wanted to hear all about what being a goddess was like. Did that mean she didn’t have to go to school?

The car ride through the familiar streets just emphasized that he was _home_. His parents had been disappointed initially that he was so determined to return to Inaba, but he’d held firm, explaining that he’d made irreplaceable friends and that he was tired of having to move around to follow their jobs. His father had admitted that they would have had to move again in a few months, and at last both of them had conceded that some stability in Yu’s schooling would probably be for the best, especially considering that college entrance exams would be coming up. Dojima had been more than happy to continue letting him stay in the guest room, and thus they’d devised the plan to have him arrive early in the morning and surprise all of his friends.

When they pulled up at the Dojima house, there was a girl sitting on the front porch in a slouchy grey t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. It took Yu a second, but when she looked up and fixed him with a bright green gaze, he knew for sure. Her hair was a little longer, and she was no longer dressed like a mishmash of Velvet attendant and regular person, but it was definitely Marie, and he was out of the car in a moment, abandoning his bags in favor of meeting her halfway up the sidewalk when she threw herself at him in a hug.

“You’re home!” she said excitedly, and the word was like a balm on his remaining reservations about leaving his parents.

“I’m home,” he replied, squeezing her. “I guess my uncle was right and you did sense me coming back?” He was a little confused that she was being so openly affectionate, but decided to take it as a compliment. She’d clearly missed him.

Marie smiled. “Of course I did. Knew as soon as the train passed Okina, pretty much.”

“Yu, come get your bags so I can lock the car up and start on breakfast!” Dojima called, and Marie let go of him long enough for them to grab his luggage and get inside, where they dumped the bags in the corner and flopped onto the couch.

“So how have things been?” Yu asked. “Yosuke says everything’s been quiet and normal, which is good.”

“He’s telling the truth. It’s been quiet. The shopping district is doing really good, though, after partnering up with Junes.” Marie shrugged. “I don’t understand all the details, but people are a lot less grumpy that Junes is here now. And I’ve got a new job!” She flopped over so her head was in Yu’s lap, smiling up at him. “You’re looking at the newest member of the news team! Ace weatherperson Kusumi Marie!”

Yu raised an eyebrow. “A weatherperson?”

She nodded sagely. “My predictions are perfect and always accurate. Of course, it helps that I can decide the weather. Being a minor land goddess has its perks; Golden Week is going to be mild and sunny.”

“Marie, oh my god.” He couldn’t help but laugh. Yes, he’d been eager to hear what she was up to as the manifestation of the goddess Izanami, but being with his parents for a little over two weeks had sort of made him forget the actual significance of _holy shit, he was friends with a literal goddess_. Discussing living arrangements and sports and benign, normal things had a way of dulling the fantastical, but it was coming back in full force now.

Marie giggled. “The Velvet Room door is still there, too. Minato-san told Margaret not to worry about moving it yet, and now I get why.”

At that point, Nanako padded down the stairs, rubbing her eyes. She headed for the kitchen, mumbling, “Good morning, Marie-neechan, Onii-chan…”

Yu covered his mouth to hide a smile, watching as she scooted behind her dad to get at the fridge and get herself a glass of juice. It was only after she’d come to sit at the table and had drained most of the glass that her eyes suddenly widened and she spun to look at the couch so fast that she almost tipped off the cushion. “Onii-chan!”

“Hey, Nanako.” Yu said casually. Marie was just barely able to sit up quickly enough to avoid her as she launched herself into Yu’s lap, and he laughed, hugging her tight. 

“I thought you weren’t coming back until Golden Week!”

“I have a surprise for you,” he admitted, grinning. “I’m coming back to go to school here this year.”

Nanako gasped. “You’re going to be home _all year?!_ ”

There was that word again, _home_. He didn’t think he was ever going to get tired of hearing it. “Yep. All year.” And wow, the smile on her face was the most rewarding thing he’d ever seen. He had definitely made the right decision.

***

Over breakfast and brief discussions of how his parents were doing, Yu and Marie devised the next step of the plan, which was for Marie to get the rest of the Investigation Team to meet her at the food court for lunch. They watched eagerly as confirmation texts rolled in from each of their friends, already imagining the looks on their faces.

With the time set, all that was left was to wait, and Yu spent it unpacking and reassembling his room. He’d brought roughly the same amount of things as before, but it was different now, knowing that this wasn’t just a temporary place to stay. Marie and Nanako lounged on his bed, occasionally throwing out decorating advice but not actually bothering to help, and eventually he got everything put away and it was time to head out for lunch.

“Okay, so just stay out of sight until everyone is there, and then bring your food and sit down like it’s no big deal,” Marie reminded him, trying not to laugh as they stood by the group’s usual table. “They leave your seat open out of habit anyway, so it’ll be perfect.”

Yu gave her a thumbs-up and went to hide behind a bank of bushes, and Marie sat down at the table with her tray, greeting each of their friends as they arrived individually and in pairs. After a few minutes of getting food and aimlessly talking about life and bemoaning the start of school the following day, Yu emerged from his hiding place and made his way over to sit down at his empty corner spot at the table. Silence descended as all of his friends gaped at him, and finally Rise shrieked, “Yu-senpai!”

“What are you doing here?” Naoto cried.

“Why didn’t you tell us you were coming to visit?!” Chie demanded.

“But I’m not here to visit,” Yu objected, as Yosuke just barely kept Teddie from launching across the table at him. “I’m going here for my last year of high school.”

That dumbfounded them a second time.

“What was the point of that big tearful goodbye, then, sensei?” Teddie practically wailed.

“I didn’t know I was coming back until I got to my parents’ apartment and we could talk about it,” Yu replied, a smile creeping across his face. “And then I decided I wanted to surprise you.”

“You definitely managed that,” Kanji said, still looking a bit shell-shocked.

Yukiko nodded. “Definitely. We had no idea. We’ve been talking about what to do while you were here for Golden Week.”

“We can still do all of that,” Yu pointed out. He glanced at Yosuke, who’d been oddly quiet, and raised an eyebrow. “You okay?”

Yosuke grinned. “Just really glad to see you, partner. This year was going to be dull without you.”

Yu fell back into the group as if the few weeks he’d been gone had never happened, and they talked about plans for the year, obviously thrilled to now be able to include the last member of the team. Chie swore up and down that they had to make it to the beach during the coming summer, and Yosuke wanted to make it into a road trip as soon as one of them had their license. They talked and talked and talked, until it was nearly dinnertime and they had to split up for jobs and food and preparations for school the following day. Yu ended up walking back home with Marie, still excitedly talking.

“I’m so glad… It’s really like no time passed at all, I was sort of worried deep down that it would be kind of awkward to have been gone longer than a few days, but… Everything was okay.” He sounded grateful, underneath the excitement. “Oh, hey, where do you live now, Marie? Are you still staying in the Velvet Room?”

Marie shook her head. “Nope. I’ve got my own apartment now, with all my own stuff. It’s great. I still visit, though. Nameless is still helping me learn to read music. And Teddie’s been hanging out a lot too, talking to Theodore. It’s been kind of weird, you know, what with the television world’s link fading out.”

Yu frowned. “What do you mean, fading out?”

“Er, let me try to figure out how to explain…” Marie pursed her lips, thinking. “Izanami… the other one, I mean, she linked the collective unconscious to Inaba, and that’s how the TVs work as portals. But that link’s going away, because I haven’t been maintaining it other than to alter the portals to allow anyone who’s a persona-user in. The dungeons are already gone, so it’s just a matter of the last ties to this world dissolving, and then it’ll just be the Velvet Room that’s still linked here.”

“I guess that’s fair…” Yu mused. “The Midnight Channel wasn’t a natural phenomenon. So without the other you’s influence, of course it would go away. And I guess you changed the portals since I wasn’t here to let them in and out?”

“Yep! Exactly. And it’ll take a little longer for the link to break entirely. Probably another month or two.” Marie shrugged. “But, Yu…”

“Hm?”

She stopped as they reached the end of the sidewalk in front of his house, looking anxious. “I really don’t want to bring this up when you’ve just gotten back but… Do you remember what Izanami said, that the fog and the game were just a small part of a bigger problem?”

Yu stopped as well, noting the worry etched around her eyes. “Yeah. Do you think there’s something else out there?”

“Not like Izanami,” Marie said quickly. “But there’s definitely a feeling. Humanity isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. And if it’s left alone, it could escalate.”

“If it does, then we’ll be there,” Yu said. “I don’t think there’s anything we can’t handle at this point.” Some people would probably say he was being too confident, but he’d defeated and befriended a goddess. He’d earned his confidence.

“I guess you’re right.” They couldn’t exactly try to stop the source of the problem when they didn’t know what it was. “I just wanted to tell you, just in case. I know you can probably fight off anything.” Marie smiled, punching his shoulder. “Hey, enjoy your first day of school tomorrow. I’ll make sure it’s a nice day for you.”

“Thanks, Marie.” He waved, heading inside to have dinner with his family, and Marie turned to walk back to her own apartment. Neither of them noticed the boy standing near the end of the street, watching them with sharp grey-blue eyes.

_You’re back, huh? Well, that just makes my job easier._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Squad: “Take a break! You deserve it!”  
> Me: *writes for the kink meme, writes almost an entire chapter that I can’t even use ‘til the end of P5, and then writes this*
> 
> In other news I’ve decided what to do with Goro at the end of P5. XD
> 
> Honestly the thing that kept me from posting this was that I was missing a decent title. But here we go! Intro chapter, etc., etc. Still trying to decide how much of Arena/DAN I actually want to do. The answer is probably “not much”. But Arena/Ultimax’s plot makes a lot more sense now after skimming the movie version. Although… apparently I’m doomed to P4 characters making me mad about other games’ characters. Adachi and Sho are making me irritated for almost the same reason Teddie and Marie did. Not at _them_ , I like them, but at the writing choices.
> 
> (I finished my NG+ of P5 and got all emotional again. Just seeing how hard everyone works to get him out of prison… He has so much family; why would he _ever_ leave Tokyo? Meanwhile, the P2 kids are busy shooting themselves in the foot and haven’t noticed yet. Good job, kids.)


	2. April 26th, 2012

There was silence in the Tokyo headquarters of the Shadow Operatives. Hamuko, Mitsuru, and Aigis stood awkwardly to one side, watching Akihiko and Shinjiro stare at each other from opposite sides of the coffee table.

Mitsuru had called him, obviously, after Christmas. He’d been somewhere in New York at the time, training at a martial arts academy and staying with a fellow persona-user they’d gotten in touch with through Minato’s contacts. When he’d heard that Shinjiro was... _back_ , for lack of a better word, he’d been quietly accepting, but hadn’t come home or made any attempt to contact him. The girls really weren’t sure what was going to happen, at this point, but there was probably an equal chance of them getting in a fight or picking up like nothing had happened. They hadn’t actually seen Shinjiro in years; the brief reunion in the Velvet Room after Nyx’s defeat had been a very special circumstance. Knowing he existed in some weird dreamlike blue room and having him actually come back permanently were two completely different beasts.

At last, Akihiko made the first move, rounding the table with quick, purposeful steps. But instead of a punch, Akihiko threw an arm around him and laughed disbelievingly. “You’re really here permanently now. Not that I didn’t believe Mitsuru, but it was just...hard to picture, you know?”

“Picturing some kind of zombie, huh, Aki?” Shinjiro shot back, but the corners of his mouth were twitching with mirth. “I know it’s been a while since Minato-kun showed you I was still alive, but really, now.”

“Seeing you in some weird magic room was one thing. But, well, people don’t generally come back from the dead. ” Akihiko bowed his head, trying not to grin as widely as he was. “We had your _funeral_. I just...geeze, what have you been doing since high school, then?”

Shinjiro shrugged. “I was in culinary school, but the end of the world sorta stopped me from getting my degree, and I’m not sure I feel like starting over.”

“Aw, come on, Mitsuru can probably get you some kind of official document or something. Your cooking skills are already amazing even without a degree.”

Mitsuru was staring at the two of them, vaguely bemused. “You’re taking this very well, Akihiko. I’m rather impressed.” She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she’d been expecting his reaction to be, but in her head it had involved a lot more yelling. Possibly anger that he’d spent so long mourning only for Shinjiro to just walk back into their lives like a miracle. Not this cheerful acceptance, in any case.

“Perhaps Akihiko-san is just glad that his best friend is back, and is not overly concerned with how?” Aigis mused. Hamuko and Mitsuru glanced at her awkwardly, but Akihiko just chuckled.

“I guess that’s mostly right. And I was kind of freaked out at first. That’s why I didn’t call. I needed some time to process.” Akihiko shrugged. “But I mean, all that work I put in after that October was to make sure I could be someone Shinji’d be proud of. And now he can actually tell me if he is!”

“Of course I am,” Shinjiro huffed. “But if you’ve got the same weird obsession with protein as you did in the other timeline, we need to have a major talk about your eating habits.”

Akihiko blinked at him, thinking back to the spats they’d had back in high school, and not-so-gracefully dodged the question by turning to Hamuko and asking, “So, how are you? Settling in well?”

Hamuko glanced at the floor, smiling awkwardly. “It’s certainly been an...adjustment. Shinji and I are going to look at apartments while we’re in town, though. We can’t keep intruding on Minato forever, and I miss living in Tokyo.”

“Well, let me know if you need a training partner while you’re here. I’m gonna be in town for a while, too. But don’t expect me to go easy on you,” Akihiko said, and Hamuko felt a rush of gratitude. He was talking to her like this was just another day, not like he’d just met her. Whether that was due to advanced warning or just him being him, she didn’t know, but it was nice all the same.

“You haven’t been able to beat me so far. I don’t know why you’d think you could now,” she teased, feeling much more at ease.

“No fair using anything other than your main persona,” he countered, and she grinned.

“Oh, fine, okay. I can kick your ass with just Orpheus Telos and my naginata if I have to!”

Shinjiro rolled his eyes, but he was clearly amused. “Now you’ve done it.” He was forced to dodge as Hamuko tried to elbow him, laughing, and Akihiko just watched the two of them with an incredulous smile.

“You two really suit each other, don’t you?” It was so odd, how Hamuko seemed to be the exact opposite of their former field leader: bright and cheerful and loud. Trying to picture her and Minato in the same place was straining his imagination a bit. But she seemed to be the spark of happiness Shinjiro needed in his life, and for that, Akihiko was grateful.

Before either Hamuko or Shinjiro could respond to his observation, there was a quiet knock on the door, and Fuuka stepped into the office. She was holding a file folder stuffed with papers, but stopped at the sight of all of them clowning around. “Oh, am I interrupting?”

“No, Yamagishi, it’s fine,” Mitsuru assured her, ignoring the other three as she and Aigis came over to take the folder. “Is this the report I asked for?”

“Kikuno-san says this is everything she could find about the tests in Yakushima from that year,” Fuuka said, handing over the papers. “The databases are very poorly maintained. Or else, someone tried to obscure a lot of information about what went on at Ergo Research.”

“I wouldn’t put it past Ikutsuki to try to hide some of the shadier things that the Kirijo Group got up to during those years,” Mitsuru said. “I’m certainly not proud of it, but that’s why we need to find out as much as possible, to make sure that nothing so terrible as Nyx has a chance to manifest from anything that my father or grandfather were a part of.” She held the folder carefully. When you learned that your family was instrumental in almost killing the entirety of humanity, nothing after that should be particularly shocking. But there was still a lingering fear that she would open the folder and find another atrocity; something else that the Kirijo Group would have to make up for.

“Oh, hey, is that about Yakushima?” Shinjiro asked, having finally escaped his girlfriend and best friend’s roughhousing. “We were looking into that back in December. Something about being concerned about there being more artificial persona-users.”

“That’s right,” Mitsuru confirmed. “Did… Did your timeline’s version of me find anything?”

Shinjiro shrugged. “Not about persona-users, no. I’m guessing most of ‘em didn’t survive the experiments, other than Strega. But there was some stuff about there possibly being other surviving bots like Aigis.”

“That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for,” Mitsuru said eagerly. “Excellent, at least now I know that going through all of these papers won’t be a waste of time.”

“Well, don’t expect me to help. I already slogged through them once. Make Aki do it.”

“Hey!” Akihiko objected. “I just got home; you can give me a few days off before you try to bury me in paperwork!”

Hamuko, from her position somehow hanging off of Akihiko’s shoulders, called, “You both suck. I’ll help you out, Mitsuru-senpai. Not today, though, unless you’re buying dinner.”

“I’ll help as well,” Fuuka said, and Aigis nodded.

“I am intrigued to know if any of my sisters still exist.”

Mitsuru smiled, satisfied. “If all three of you help, we’ll be finished in no time, I’m sure. You’re so much more reliable than the boys. I don’t honestly think they have the focus required to find anything helpful in these documents, anyway.”

“Hey, wait a minute, what?”

And so Mitsuru ended up with five willing helpers instead of three, because neither of her boys could stop being competitive long enough to realize that she’d tricked them, especially not with Hamuko egging them on. And it was still odd, having Hamuko and Shinjiro around, but the longer they were there, the more natural it felt. Shinjiro stepped back into their lives with little other than the initial ripple, and Hamuko, despite the place she should have occupied already being filled, complemented her brother in a way that felt completely right. Everything was settling the way it should; they could only hope now that there was nothing in the files that was going to cause them undue grief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hamuko’s doing pretty okay, now. She still gets a little shaky if something personal gets brought up that’s exclusive to just one timeline, but it’s getting easier and easier to be around the others. It helps that the others have started treating her as one of them, and not like the ‘new person’ of the group.
> 
> And so now we’ve seen what (part of) the Shadow Operatives are up to, and I can figure out how I wanna do Ultimax. Because there’s really only two things I want to hit in any particular detail, so getting it to flow properly will be interesting.
> 
> (If I didn’t know that Eternal Punishment was a thing, I’d probably say that Innocent Sin’s ending wasn’t very good, honestly (other than punching Philemon because holy shit, Tatsuya, oh my god, you punched one of the three most powerful beings in existence????). X’D In any other story, that kind of ending would be the ultimate cop-out. But since I know there’s another part, it’s okay. All the music has felt oddly familiar, though, for some reason. And I’m adopting Jun, good lord. Kid almost panic-attack’d himself out of existence. JFC. I have...a lot of thoughts about Jun, though, in relation to other things...)


	3. May 6th, 2012

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As it turns out, once I’d sat down and looked at everything, Arena/Ultimax didn’t go much differently except for four extra people showing up as backup for the P1 Climax. So you guys get a post-Ultimax character chapter instead.

Golden Week, despite Marie honoring her promise for nice weather, was a lot less nice than any of them had intended. Not _only_ had Mitsuru had to call and cancel their trip to Destinyland, the world had started going to hell again just a few days later. Yu was pretty sure there needed to be some kind of rule about the length of time between armageddons. It had been over a year between Nyx and Izanami, after all; two months just wasn’t enough in comparison.

By some miracle, they were all still alive after two bizarre fighting tournaments, a half-crazed former Kirijo test subject hijacking the Midnight Channel for his own ends, and a one-on-one duel with the living embodiment of the rejection of bonds. Yukiko, who’d still had the suites at the Amagi Inn reserved despite them not going on the Destinyland trip, had ushered them all to the rooms when they finally staggered back out of Yasogami into the restored Inaba at two in the morning, and now half of them were too wound up to sleep despite being exhausted.

“I can’t believe that a sentient piece of _your_ enemy used part of _my_ enemy’s plan to almost kill us,” Yu muttered tiredly, glancing at Minato, who was flat on his back on a futon.

“I can't believe we're at the point where we're referring to them as 'yours' and 'mine'. But yeah, I knew there were probably other plumes of dusk out there, but that was...unexpected,” Minato replied faintly. “At least Labrys is okay. She and Aigis are getting along like they’ve known each other forever.” He rolled over to look at Yu, a tiny smile on his face. “What’s really unbelievable were those nicknames. How much research went into getting them that accurate?”

Yu made a face. “Accurate? Says the person who ended up with ‘Apathetic Prince of the Universe’. You got a decent one; I do _not_ have a sister complex.”

“The ‘Kingpin of Steel’ part was right, though,” Minato said airily, and Yu rolled his eyes.

“I guess? Ryoji’s might have been the most accurate of all of ours, though. ‘Shamelessly Flirtatious Angel of Death’ describes him to a T.” He sighed, glancing around the room. Yosuke, Junpei, Teddie, and Ryoji were playing cards in a corner, trying to wind down. Ken and Kanji were asleep already, Koromaru tucked into the crook of Ken’s arm. The girls were in the other suite. The only people missing were Akihiko and Shinjiro, who had taken the Shadow Operatives’ helicopter to take Adachi back to their headquarters.

Of all the unbelievable things, that had been the most unbelievable of all. After Mitsuru and the others had been kidnapped, Yukari, Labrys, and Ken had made the decision to bring _Adachi_ along to serve as a guide. Which...hadn’t turned out badly, in the end, all things considered, but it had still been a shock to see him in the tower, pretending to go along with Minazuki Sho’s insane plan.

* * *

_“Adachi-san, what are you doing here?”_

_Adachi smiled lazily, a familiar expression, and at Yu’s back Chie and Yosuke made identical disbelieving sounds. “No way…” Yosuke said lowly._

_Yu, however, focused only on the man in front of them. “You’re supposed to be locked up,” he said harshly, not sure how he was supposed to be feeling. He supposed it depended on what Adachi was actually up to._

_“Locked up by your friends in the Shadow Operatives, you mean,” Adachi said. “They panicked after the others got kidnapped, and brought me along with them, thinking they’d need someone who knew something about the television world.”_

_“They could ask us for that,” Chie snapped. “They didn’t need you.”_

_Adachi shrugged carelessly. “They’re much more willing to risk my life than yours, that’s for sure. And then we got separated and that Sho kid asked for my help…”_

_“You’re helping him?” Yu said incredulously. Minazuki Sho was the laughing-mad culprit behind all of this fog and fighting. They’d met him at the base of the tower and been forced to fight him off. “You promised that you were going to abide by the rules!”_

_“Hey, now. Don’t overreact,” Adachi said. “I’m interpreting the rules, is all. Besides, blindly following the rules? Not a good standard to live by. If you all keep going the way that you’re going, you’re going to follow the rules right off the metaphorical cliff!”_

_Yosuke snarled. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He took a step forward, hand straying to his weapons, and Yu stuck out an arm to keep him back._

_Adachi laughed. “I’m just surprised at all of you, is all. You were never this obedient when I tried to tell you to do something, but that brat and his weird shadow-friend insist on this tournament, and you just meekly go along with the one-on-one fights like good little sports. It’s strange to see.”_

_Yu hesitated. “Are you implying we’re missing something?”_

_“You kids are so dense! I’ll just have to figure out another way to get it through your thick heads…”_

* * *

He had, eventually, but it was a near thing. And then he’d nearly gotten himself killed trying to stop Minazuki from summoning that fire-beast on the roof. But he’d come through when it mattered, and Yu was grateful, even if Adachi was still a murderer.

“I feel bad for that Sho kid. Mitsuru-senpai filled all of us in with Fuuka’s help while you were dealing with Kagatsuchi, and he had a really terrible situation, didn’t he?” Minato commented.

“Huh?” Yu flopped back on his futon, turning on his side to face Minato like this was the world’s weirdest sleepover. “I’m just worried it wasn’t the best idea to let him run off like that. He did try to destroy the world.”

“I guess I understand a little. I was an orphan, and it basically numbed me to everything. If I hadn’t had Pharos, and hadn’t made friends at Gekkoukan, who knows what I would have become,” Minato murmured. “I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be a test subject like that.” He shook his head. “I don’t think he’ll cause any more problems, but I’m sure Mitsuru-senpai will be keeping an eye out.”

“If you say so. As long as he properly challenges me to a duel next time he wants to fight instead of just flying out of nowhere…” Yu was really getting too tired to care, and he groped around for the blankets. “It’s almost three AM… I’m going to crash.” He was genuinely surprised Minato hadn’t crashed already.

Minato rolled back onto his back, glancing at his boyfriend, who appeared to be losing the card game in a fairly spectacular fashion if his slumped posture was anything to go off of. “Sleep well. We’ll figure the rest out in the morning.”

The last thing Yu remembered was thinking that someone with Sho’s personality and Minato’s power would be terrifying, and then he was out cold.

***

In the other room, most of the girls were still awake. Unable to settle properly after the harrowing fight to hold the line in the tower, they sat around trading stories about what had happened as they all attempted to make their way through the red-fogged Inaba, and Mitsuru was overly apologetic that the whole thing had even happened at all. 

“I’m extremely sorry that we had to cancel the trip to Destinyland,” Mitsuru said. “We’ll have to go when you all are on summer break, if everyone’s schedules line up. Some time when my company’s skeletons aren’t falling out of their closets.”

“Hey, you can’t blame yourself. It’s not like you knew what all those guys had gotten up to. We didn’t even know about _Nyx_ until it was almost too late because they tampered with the tapes,” Yukari objected. “And you got _kidnapped_ ; I think we can deal with not going to Destinyland.”

Yukiko held a finger to her mouth, nodding towards Naoto, the one person in the room who had dozed off. Quietly, she said, “It’s really a shame that you all have to leave in the morning. Could you at least stay long enough for all of us to go to lunch? I’m sure that if I called Aiya’s restaurant, we could reserve it so there would be space for all of us.”

“That does sound nice. Thank you, Amagi,” Mitsuru said.

“Hey, uh, I don’t wanna interrupt or anything, but what country is Destinyland?” Labrys asked blankly. “It sounds weird.”

Hamuko bounced excitedly. “It’s not a country! It’s only the biggest theme park in Japan! They’ve got shows and shops and roller coasters!”

“Roller coasters?” Labrys still looked baffled, and Hamuko grabbed her and dragged her off to one side to regale her with descriptions of theme park rides and Destiny magic. Aigis followed, equally curious about what the park was like, and the others shuffled around, starting to stretch out on the futons.

“It’s a shame that the first time we all managed to get together in a long time, we ended up having to stop the world from ending,” Chie commented. She pointed at Yukari. “We haven’t had nearly enough time to talk. I wanna hear about how you ended up becoming Feather Pink!”

“What about Rise?” Yukari asked, deflecting as she turned roughly the color of the mentioned Phoenix Ranger. “She’s working on her idol comeback; that’s just as impressive.”

Rise flapped at hand at her, embarrassed, but didn’t actually move from where she was leaning on Fuuka’s shoulder. “I’ll make sure to get you tickets for the event we’re doing this summer. Inoue-san wants me to perform at the Love Meets Bonds festival with a new group he’s putting together.” She grinned. “But what’s really weird is seeing all of you older than us, since we went into the Abyss of Time when we were all the same age. You’re all so grown-up now! Especially Akihiko-san! How much working out does he _do?_ ”

“Entirely too much, really,” Yukari said. “He spent most of the time after graduation travelling and training. Right, Mitsuru-senpai?” She glanced over, but Mitsuru was looking contemplative. “Uh, senpai? What’s wrong?”

“Yesterday was Saturday,” Mitsuru said. “We missed the new episode of Featherman, and I can’t remember when the rerun is.”

“Oh, is that all? They show the reruns on Wednesdays, at seve--” Yukari paused. “Wait, you watch Featherman?!” She stared at Mitsuru in shock, and Mitsuru just fixed her with a pointed look.

“One of my best friends has the starring role. Why would I not watch?”

Yukari gaped at her, then smiled. “I… I didn’t realize…” she said, sounding a little choked. “You never mentioned it.”

“Well, I certainly wasn’t going to broadcast that I enjoy a children’s show. Shinjiro would never let me hear the end of it.” Mitsuru checked her phone, then looked around at all of them. “We should at least try to sleep if we’re going to be _awake_ to all go to lunch,” she pointed out.

“Yes, ma’am,” Yukari replied, but she couldn’t seem to stop smiling. They rearranged the futons so there would be plenty of space for everyone, convinced Hamuko to stop waxing poetic about Destinyland, and settled in.

Everyone was just starting to doze off when Yukiko piped up, “Oh… We didn’t check on Marie. I hope she’s all right; Yu-kun said the fog was getting to her.”

“Theo and them were taking care of her,” Hamuko said. “She should be okay now that everything’s back to normal. Margaret mentioned she should be good as new by tomorrow, even.” The Velvet attendants had been forced to just watch the tournaments, much to Elizabeth’s disappointment, right up until Margaret had gotten them all safely out of the tower. That was all she was allowed to do; Igor had finally put his foot down and told them that they’d used up all of their ‘interference-in-a-crisis’ points for the next several _years_ , at least. The rulers of power were absolutely biased in favor of their friends.

“We need to get Marie-chan to come to lunch with us, at least…” Fuuka said sleepily, and there was a mumble of assent from around the room as people started drifting off.

It had been something special, getting to solve a crisis _together_ again, despite the threat of the world literally being obliterated, and all of them knew that they would have each others’ backs for any crisis that arose in the future, too. There was nothing that the combined might of the Shadow Operatives and the Investigation Team couldn’t handle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me@Me: Stop writing things from all the way at the end of P5 and focus, damn it. X'D
> 
> I still don’t understand how exactly Sho managed to get Adachi out of prison. I never got the impression that he was in jail in Inaba, so even the fog descending shouldn’t have made him that accessible. *shrug* So, Shadow Ops it is. And this is not the last time I’m going to shrug and point at them to explain something, I’m sure.
> 
> I’m sorely tempted to never let them actually make it to Destinyland, just for the joke potential of the Thieves eventually getting the whole park to themselves. Just, have all of them decide that they won’t go unless everyone can make it, and then someone always has something to do. For extra laughs, the weekend they finally manage to get everyone together, it’s the weekend Okumura foods rented it out. XDDD
> 
> Next chapter, we see someone who has only made one appearance in this series so far!
> 
> (I’m 3 hours into Eternal Punishment and god damn it the graphics, the names, and the story are all killing me for slightly different reasons. (Although, an NPC on the street mentioned the “heir to the Nanjo Group” and now I’m confused.) Tatsuya’s basically trying to run a NG+ by himself and I don’t think it’s gonna work. :( Also I like Katsuya.)


	4. July 14th, 2012

Twelve was not an easy age when your parents had decided years ago that you were a troublemaker and nothing you did would ever be good enough.

It was his first year of middle school, and he’d joined the gymnastics club. Partially because it seemed fun, and partially as an excuse to spend less time at home. Today was their first meet, and he stared out the window as his parents drove to the venue, excited but also anxious. If he did well, they might actually praise him. But there was a chance things would turn out like they always did, and if he wasn’t Olympic-level first-place they wouldn’t care.

Things had always been like that. He tried to be good, he really did, but nothing seemed to work out. He used to come home from elementary school with his test papers, happy to show them off, but the response was never as happy as he was.

* * *

_“Mom, Mom, look, we got our tests back today! Look how many I got right!” He brandished the paper with pride, all of eight years old and beaming at how well he’d done._

_But his mother took the test and just looked it over briefly. “Why did you miss these three?”_

_His smile faltered. “I...I made a mistake. I subtracted wrong.”_

_“All of these are the same kind of problem. Why would you miss those three if you did all the others correctly? You need to pay more attention.” She handed the test back without another word, turning back to the vegetables she’d been chopping, and he retreated quietly, enthusiasm gone._

* * *

Eventually, he stopped bothering to be happy about anything he did in school. His parents never were. They never really acknowledged what he'd done right on assignments, just questioned why he'd gotten things wrong. Good things drew silence, because that was _clearly_ what he should be doing in the first place. It was only negatives that were pointed out. And it extended to other things, too. Never mind that he was the most well-behaved child on the train when they went into Tokyo for a day trip; he walked away from his mother for one minute to talk to an older boy that had an oddly-familiar feeling around him, and his mother scolded him mercilessly when he came back, in front of everyone in the Tower. It didn't matter that he was perfectly-behaved the rest of the time, that one incident just added to his parents' notion that he was a problem child. They expected perfection, and he wasn't providing.

The real beginning of the end, though, was the notes that were sent home from school. He hated seeing people bullied and pushed around, but no one ever seemed to help them. So he tried to do it himself, with varying results. And people were grateful, sure, but it just served to make his parents more disappointed in him, because the teachers considered him a nuisance.

* * *

_“This says that you shoved Yusa-kun into the lockers. Why would you do that?” his father asked, the teacher’s note clenched in one hand._

_“Because he stole Kubota-chan’s snack money and wouldn’t give it back! He’s a jerk!” he insisted, arms folded defiantly. No matter what the note said, this wasn’t his fault._

_His father scowled. “That’s not what this note says. It just says that you shoved him. Why didn’t you go to a teacher, if he really stole something?”_

_“I did! She didn’t listen!” She’d brushed him off, telling him that Kubota-chan had to report the theft herself. But Kubota-chan was scared of what the bullies would do, so he’d tried to do it for her. And when that didn’t work..._

_“You need to learn to mind your own business. Don’t get involved in things that will cause trouble for you. You’ll give us a bad reputation for raising a son that starts fights.”_

* * *

He tried to be quieter, to be the good child his parents wanted, but he couldn’t let bullies just do whatever they felt like. His mother and father had discussions about him when they thought he couldn’t hear, wondering why he was such a troublemaker, wondering why he wouldn’t listen to them. And he resented them, silently, wondering why they wouldn’t listen to _him_. The notes only told one side of the story. They only told what he had done, not what the other kid had done in the first place, but it didn’t matter to _anyone_ , not just his parents. Kids who only ever saw him getting scolded assumed he was just a troublemaker, too.

Things had come to a head in March, when they’d visited a spring festival in another city. While his parents had looked through a booth of some lady’s handmade jewelry, he’d gotten distracted by a table that was nothing but flowers. They were so pretty, and so colorful, he couldn’t help but go over to look at them.

* * *

_The dark-haired man behind the table smiled at him, and there was a familiar feeling somewhere behind that smile. He’d felt it before, but different, and he couldn’t remember where. But he scuffed his shoe against the pavement shyly, and the man asked, “Which one do you like?”_

_He pointed at a small purple one, and the man nodded. “I see. Violets mean loyalty. That says good things about your character.” The man picked out two of the purple ones, and a larger white flower, and said, “Here. For you. Violets for loyalty, and a white jasmine for joy.”_

_He hesitantly took the flowers. “I don’t have any money.” His parents didn’t give him any sort of allowance._

_“Consider them a gift. I feel like you need them.”_

_He smiled, thanking the man for the gift and walking back to rejoin his parents. They looked at him oddly, though, when they saw the flowers, and once they’d walked away from the jewelry table, his mother asked, “Where did you get those?”_

_Her tone made him flinch. Kindness only concealed the accusation beneath, an innocent question shielding the real one:_ what have you done now? _He pointed back at the man’s table. “He gave them to me, as a present.”_

_His father marched him straight back to the table, apologizing to the man and offering to pay for the flowers. Confused, the man reiterated that they had been a gift. He hoped that was the end of it, but as soon as they were away, his father scolded him for accepting something like that, and making the man feel ‘obligated’ to turn down payment._

* * *

After that day, he stopped trusting his parents. If they were always going to assume the worst of him, he would just have to make sure he didn't do anything bad, because he already knew they wouldn't take his side. He'd do his best in class, be quiet and unobtrusive, and hope that he didn’t attract any more unnecessary attention. Middle school was going to be a brand-new him. That meant no more picking fights, no more ‘causing a scene’, and he could definitely never mention that strange, see-through blue door he spotted sometimes. He didn’t need anyone to think he was crazy in addition to being a pain.

When they pulled up at the gymnastics venue, he got out as quickly as he could, giving his parents an obligatory wave before running off to meet up with the team. At least he had friends there. Someone thought he was doing a good job. That was enough, wasn’t it?

***

Thirteen was not an easy age when everyone around you had decided years ago that they didn’t want you.

It was his second year of middle school, and he wished he could join some kind of club, so he didn’t have to go back to where he was staying right away after school, but club dues were a luxury and an expense that his foster parents didn’t feel like paying. They had already been annoyed enough to have to purchase a new uniform to replace the one he’d outgrown.

Things had always been like that. He was adopted not because someone cared, but because he was an opportunity to get a stipend from the government. And the second he stepped out of line, he was sent away again. It had happened before, and he held no illusions that it wouldn’t happen again. His first foster home, he’d lasted a month, before he’d been sent back to the orphanage for ‘starting fights’ with the couple's _real_ child. He’d been five, at the time.

* * *

_“This is the third fight you’ve been in with Tohya-kun this week. What is wrong with you?”_

_“He shoves me and pinches me and steals my books!”_

_“Tohya-kun is a good boy. I’m sure you’re antagonizing him in some way. No wonder your mother couldn’t bear being around you, if this is how you turned out.”_

* * *

Using his mother to hurt him was common enough, both by the foster parents that rejected him and the other children looking to pick at him. He remembered her mostly as little details and feelings, memories of smiles and tired amber eyes, of warmth and safety that he didn’t have anymore. His sharpest memory of her, though, was from when he was three, when the pressure and shame of being a single mother with a bastard child had finally gotten to her, and she’d hung herself from a ceiling beam of their tiny, cramped apartment. The landlord found him sobbing on the floor, presumably after one of the neighbors called him to complain about the wailing toddler next door. And from then on, it was into the system.

The institutions he lived in after her death were really no different from being adopted. He was alone either way, forced to guard his few possessions diligently because the caretakers did nothing to help, trying to get enough to eat and failing because the budgets weren’t enough or his foster family didn’t think he deserved it. The assortment of foster homes and orphanages blended together; why bother to differentiate when they were all essentially the same? Only a few details stuck out. The third home he’d lived in, when he was eleven, his foster father had hit him on a nearly daily basis. When he’d finally cracked and hit back, it was right back into an orphanage.

This was the fourth home he’d lived in. It was a childless couple, thinking that the hundred-thousand yen per month stipend for caring for a foster child would supplement their income nicely. And it did, because they certainly didn’t spend it on him when they didn’t have to. Any expenses he incurred seemed to be more of an inconvenience than anything, to the point where they didn’t even feed him breakfast so that they didn't have to buy as many extra groceries.

* * *

_“You can last until the school feeds you lunch, can’t you? It’s such a bother to fix you breakfast before we leave for work.”_

_“...I can last. It’s no trouble.”_

_“Good. That’s what we like to hear. It’s already enough to have paid for your school fees. Make sure you focus on your studies; no one wants a stupid child.”_

* * *

He’d learned, at last. Be agreeable, be perfect, be a model child. Get good grades so he could pass his high school entrance exams even though his foster parents wouldn’t pay for cram school. It wouldn’t erase the stigma of being a bastard, and it wouldn’t change the fact that he was spending his time before school loitering in front of the supermarket in the July heat, waiting for someone to turn away so he could steal an apple from the display basket, but it might keep them from getting rid of him for a little longer. 

And the time spent in a house where he actually had a small space to himself hadn’t been a waste. He’d found his father.

It hadn’t been easy, but he’d followed the few clues his mother had left behind. It was a low-level politician. Basically no one. And yet for some reason, the man had abandoned him and his mother, leaving them to fend for themselves, driving his mother to the end of her endurance.

And so he waited. He knew what he wanted. When he was fifteen, he could legally leave the system, and he would go to his father and see what kind of man he was. He had already picked a surname to use for himself, from a detective novel he’d read once. He’d approach Shido Masayoshi and see what he was like, and when the moment was right, tell him the truth and demand to know why he’d never bothered to see how the mother of his child was doing.

And then--!

And then…

Well, he didn’t know. But it would be better than this. That was enough, wasn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of an intro chapter, in a way. I'm not sure about this one; I tried something a little different, and I hope it worked.
> 
> I have very solid and strong feelings about Akira’s parents based on absolutely nothing. _Fuck Akira’s parents._ Anyway, there will be more worldbuilding for these two as I go, because one doesn’t just get shipped off to the city/become a hitman at the age of fifteen for no reason, and if canon isn’t going to give me what I need, headcanon will have to do. Lots of sad headcanon. There are bits of actual canon in there too, though, if you can find them.
> 
> (I’m roughly halfway through EP and we went from spaceships and Hitler to spaceships and Magic Dragons??? I still love poor Katsuya having to deal with all this insanity. Although, I had to pause the video when I got to them talking about Kandori possibly still being alive, because the dialogue about killed me. They used all three names while discussing him, including implying “Kandori” is some kind of alias he’s using. JUST CALL HIM KANDORI LOCALIZATION TEAM PLEASE HELP ME I’M DYING HERE.)
> 
> ((Also special shoutout even though they’ll never see this to my favorite person on youtube that makes MMD videos, because I was literally just thinking the other day that I wished there was more content in general that included all the protagonists, and apparently [wish hard enough and ye shall receive.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGx_5PHOykU) In fancy outfits. ^_^))


	5. August 19th, 2012

“We’re _never_ going to make it to Destinyland at this rate,” Hamuko groaned, flopped over the bar in the Velvet Room’s dance hall. Perched on his stool beside her, Minato took a bite of shaved ice, raising an eyebrow.

“Probably not this summer, no,” he agreed. “Did you really want to go when it’s this hot anyway?”

“Ugh, no. But it’s the principle of the thing!” She tucked her arm under her head as a makeshift pillow, looking over at him. “Although I guess it’s not the other team’s fault that they all got roped into that music festival thing. It’s just been weird to have everyone be so busy.”

Minato hummed. “Don’t you have a new job now? You’re busy, too.”

“It’s just a part-time receptionist thing. I could take a few days off.”

Setting his cup of ice aside for the moment, Minato fixed her with his full attention. “Things are going okay, though, with the new apartment and everything?” It was so strange to think of them all as adults, getting jobs, being in college. It had been impossible to picture something like that back when they were just struggling to get through the full moon every month. But if Naoya and his friends could make it work, so could they.

Hamuko shrugged, smiling. “It’s a nice apartment. Not too far from headquarters, convenient alley to hide a Velvet door… Mitsuru-senpai’s working on getting Shinji a college certification, based on the classes he’d finished before...Christmas.” She huffed, barrelling past the moment of hesitation with, “He’s been talking about opening a restaurant, but he’s not sure what kind yet. But Mitsuru-senpai’s been busy dealing with Public Safety, since they haven’t stopped poking around since that whole thing with Labrys. I know it’s their job to oversee the police and stuff to make sure everything’s running properly, but it’s still annoying.”

Minato rolled his eyes. “I didn’t get why she wanted to be official so much in the first place. We were fine on our own, and we didn’t have nosy people bothering us. Can you imagine what would happen if they came poking around the dorm? I keep the room where we store all the tech locked, but if anyone from the government spotted the evokers…”

“It would be a pain,” Hamuko agreed. “Especially with plenty of us not being twenty yet. Naoto-kun’s been in town to help deal with the inquiries, though, so we’re not too badly off.”

“Hey, you and I will be legally adults in another month or so. That must be tricky, though, having Naoto-kun in Tokyo, since it adds an extra stop to Rise-chan’s trips to help them with dance practice,” Minato commented. “I’m just impressed they’re doing it at all. This is going to be an interesting festival.” He smirked a bit, clearly picturing them tripping all over themselves onstage. Rise had stopped off at headquarters to drop off tickets for the Shadow Operatives, and had mentioned offhand that practice was going...interestingly.

“Oh, hush.” Hamuko shoved him, knowing exactly what he was thinking. “Like you’re one to talk. I don’t think you can dance at all.”

“That’s not fair. I’ve been to Escapade.”

Hamuko scoffed. “From what you’ve told me, the last time you were in Club Escapade, you were babysitting our literally-punch-drunk Investigation Team. And before that, I’d be willing to bet you’d only been in there for the fight against that full-moon shadow.”

“It’s not like you can dance either,” Minato accused, and Hamuko got to her feet.

“Is that a challenge? We are in the dance hall.”

“I guess it is.” Minato got up, going to fiddle with the sound system in the corner. “And I don’t plan on losing.”

***

Ryoji and Theodore stood just outside the doorway, watching the twins dance with matching fond smiles. They’d been attracted by the music, but hadn’t wanted to interrupt. It was too entertaining to watch them trying to keep up with each other.

“I never would have imagined he could be this happy,” Ryoji said, very softly. “It’s amazing.”

“Minato-san and Hamuko-chan had a difficult time. But all of that seems to be behind them now. I’m so glad,” Theodore replied.

Ryoji glanced at him, a knowing smile on his face. “You had a thing for Hamu-chan, right? Just like Elizabeth had a thing for her brother.”

Theodore turned red. “W-We went out a few times. I was just happy to spend time with her, but we, t-that is, the attendants here, we don’t form relationships like that…”

“I’m just teasing you, Theo. Don’t worry,” Ryoji giggled. “Although, speaking of Elizabeth, where is she? She’s usually never far away when Minato’s around.”

“She said she wanted to look into something,” Theodore said. “I can’t imagine what, though. She never really tries to explain anything to me.” He sighed. “She’s probably just off making sure that Erebus hasn’t reawakened. She likes beating it up.”

Ryoji made a face. “Can’t really argue with that.” He glanced back into the dance hall, where the twins were arguing over who had won the impromptu dance-off, and elbowed Theodore. “Want to go be impartial judges?”

“I… Sure.” He glanced over his shoulder, as if Igor would be there waiting to frown at him for doing something fun, but followed Ryoji into the hall anyway. Wherever Elizabeth was, she was missing out.

***

Theodore hadn’t been far off the mark, actually. Elizabeth had indeed gone to check on Erebus, but it wasn’t a suitable size or strength level for beating up yet, so she had left it alone to bang weakly against the base of the Door and headed out into the Sea of Souls, following a curious resonance.

She’d first noticed it when the ‘television world’ had manifested from the collective unconsciousness being connected to Yasoinaba. The entire place thrummed with a low feeling, and while she and Margaret had discussed it, they’d agreed it was part of that world’s structure.

But then she’d felt it elsewhere, when she’d ventured into the Sea to stop Erebus back in March.

The television world’s resonance should not have been elsewhere, but by that point their master had been rather annoyed by them running around and interfering, so she’d opted to lie low and wait to investigate. But now, with a few months of quiet behind them, she’d felt secure in venturing out to look around.

“I must remember to one day thank our master for the ability to use the doors to cross the Sea,” she muttered to herself, stepping through one and dispersing it behind her. Travel in the Sea of Souls was by no means an exact science; she was basically limited to discerning the basic direction of the resonance and hopping a little closer each time. And there were two ‘signals’, so to speak, one weak and one strong. She was pursuing the weaker one first, just to get a sense of what it could be before she tackled the stronger one.

The Sea of Souls was as it usually was, a glittering expanse of stars filling the endless void. Slight ripples scattered from her steps, but that was the only real indication of a floor. Elizabeth had never been unnerved by the lack of discernable walkable area. Lavenza didn’t like it; she avoided the Sea whenever possible, but Elizabeth was comfortable enough to hum the Long-Nose Song as she walked. Even knowing what was lurking out there.

When she stepped out of the next door, she grinned. “Found you! Now, what are you?” She scanned the area, but there didn’t seem to be anything emitting that particular resonance. “Honestly, I know that I have arrived in the proper location. Hiding does no good, you know!”

As she stood there, she realized that there was the faintest sound of music. It was coming from above, though, and when Elizabeth looked up, she could just barely make out something far, _far_ above her. “Really? I have no means of getting up _there_.” Short of hanging out of a doorway, but she would rather not risk it. They weren’t indestructible, after all, and there was no guarantee there was a solid surface up there. Making a disappointed noise, she considered the possibilities. If it was emitting the same resonance as the television world, perhaps it was another area born from the will of humanity. But it was clearly small, not as developed. It didn’t even feel large enough for a single ‘dungeon’, as Narukami-kun’s team referred to them, despite her being able to sense a small amount of shadows gathering within. Not something to be concerned about right now, then, when there was a stronger reading still to investigate.

It was much easier to pinpoint that one due to the strength of the resonance, and when Elizabeth opened the door, she was startled to find that she had stepped into some sort of room, instead of the void of the Sea. It had curiously patterned walls and tiled floors, and a faint red tint to the air. There were a few signs on the walls, as well as strange, creeping growths of red and black, and a few human-form shadows milled around. She cursed her lack of knowledge of the human world, otherwise she might know what sort of place this was, but she did recognize one part, at least.

“Escalators!” The incredible moving staircases that Minato had introduced her to when she toured Tatsumi Port Island. She hurried past the waist-high gates to look, but they appeared to be broken, since neither side was moving. What a disappointment. She had hoped to challenge the never-ending upward motion on her way downstairs, but it was not to be.

Following the escalator down led her to a platform of sorts, with train tracks running out of view into what appeared to be a maze of tunnels. “Ah! This must be the ‘subway’ that they’ve talked about. I wonder why such a thing would be here?”

She pulled out her copy of the compendium, which she’d brought just in case, keeping it at the ready. But as she ventured into the tunnels it quickly became apparent that there was nothing to find. A low-level shadow appeared every once in a while, but they fled from her power level without putting up a fight. She couldn’t sense anything stronger than Pixies and Pyro Jacks anywhere in the area, and it didn’t seem particularly large. Strange, worth keeping an eye on, but also not something to worry about. She would check back periodically, and alert her master if anything seemed amiss. If he didn’t already know. He was probably already aware of these distortions, and would call in their human guests if needed.

Her curiosity sated, she decided it was probably time to return to the Velvet Room before someone noticed her absence. Perhaps she could ask Lady Belladonna or Nameless about the strange subway. In a roundabout way, of course. It wouldn’t do to alert anyone to her spending her time roaming about the Sea.

But what a curious place this was. Hopefully it was just a whim of humanity and would fade on its own. There had been far too many crises too close together, lately.

What could mankind possibly be thinking?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Dancing Moon Night is gonna be a good game, you guys.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AANkM8ecUq8)
> 
> Yes, the smaller resonance was Mikuratana-no-Kami and the unfinished Midnight Stage, ready to gain power, turn into a replica of the production offices, and make their lives difficult in early September. Elizabeth isn’t particularly worried. XD I’ve decided that I’m going to skip over DAN, though. There’s a lot of other things to cover, and while it definitely has a good story, there’s not much different other than some of the Shadow Ops being in the audience when everything goes to Hell. Oh, and Dojima and Nanako having a much better idea of what’s going on.
> 
> Honestly, I’m just impatient, because I’ve been getting a better and better idea of how I want to do certain things in P5, but I know that I have to set up everything I want to do properly. This is already self-indulgent as hell; it can at least be well-foreshadowed self-indulgence. :P
> 
> The more I watch of Persona 2, the more I can see how 2’s tone and stuff bleeds over into 5. It was even said outright at one point, “The masses will always desire a leader that decides everything for them.” And I just got through the reveal at Alaya Shrine, and...someone please hug Tatsuya. Anyone. God. This is awful...


	6. October 8th, 2012

The atmosphere in the Velvet Room was quiet, anticipatory. Perched in the chair before Igor’s desk, Minato carefully selected the pair of cards from the ones spread out before him. “These two. I want to fuse these two.”

“Your bonds are strong; it will receive extraordinary power. Very well.” Igor gestured to his assistant, and Lavenza stepped forward to face the two cards, her gaze determined. She took a deep breath, focusing on the Eligor and Slime represented by the cards, and gestured sharply. The cards flipped over, a glowing blue magic circle appearing on the surface of the desk, and then the cards shot into the air and merged together to become a new one. But instead of landing back on the desk, the new card fluttered off to one side and hit the carpet of the elevator, and Lavenza’s eyes widened.

“Oh no!” She went to pick up the card and turned it over to look at it. Instead of Nata Taishi, Jack Frost’s grinning face emblazoned the face of the card. “It’s...another Jack Frost…”

The disappointed atmosphere was broken as Hamuko giggled from somewhere off to the side. “How is it that every time you mess up, it’s a Jack Frost?” she asked, hand over her mouth to hide a grin. “We should try fusions with Jack Frost, just to see if you can accidentally fuse one into itself.”

Lavenza pouted. “Elizabeth gets Legion a lot when she messes up,” she said, handing Minato the card. “I apologize, Minato-san. How many is that?”

“We’ve done...fourteen fusions, and eleven of them have been Jack Frost,” Minato said, the corner of his mouth twitching as he tried not to smile as well. “I’m starting to think you just really like Jack Frost.”

The youngest attendant covered her face with her hands, peeking between her fingers to look between him and Igor. “I’m sorry!”

Hamuko came over to pat her on the head. “You’re still learning, silly. It’s okay.” She took Minato’s place at the table, setting down the Jack Frost card and flipping through the compendium until she found Orobas. “Let’s try this one out, then.”

Igor hummed thoughtfully. It was one of the weakest fusions possible; he hoped it would turn out properly. But perhaps Lavenza simply hadn’t found the right mindset to perform the fusions accurately. It required a precise kind of focus, after all, and that was something she would need to figure out for herself, because it was unique to each attendant. The more practice she got, the easier it would be to fall into the proper mental state. “Very well. Go ahead, Lavenza.”

She took a deep breath, happy that he didn’t seem mad that she was messing up, and faced the cards again. Once again, when the magic circle vanished, the card ended up on the floor, and when she picked it up, she took one look and dropped it again, covering her face.

“Again?” Minato asked, bending over to retrieve it. But he looked, and had to muffle a laugh. “Oh, Lavenza…”

“Is it another Jack Frost?” Hamuko asked, reaching for the card. When Minato shook his head, she immediately pictured the worst possible fusion accident one could have, hoping desperately that Lavenza hadn’t accidentally conjured Mara. But once the card was safely in her grasp, she giggled. “You got a King Frost out of those two? Oh wow… Still a Frost, though.”

Lavenza was turning an embarrassed magenta under her hands, and Igor sighed, though there was a hint of mirth in his expression. “Perhaps it would be best if we ended here today,” he said, “since you appear to be stuck in a bit of a rut.”

“I’m so sorry, Master Igor,” she said, almost tripping over the words in her haste to apologize for her failure.

But Igor just shook his head. “You are learning. Margaret and Elizabeth and Theodore started off poorly as well. And we all still make mistakes. The cards can be unpredictable to even the most experienced of us.” He looked over at Minato and Hamuko, nodding to them. “Thank you for coming today to help Lavenza with her training. I find that it is more effective to recreate an accurate situation, and for that I required a guest’s help.”

Minato nodded. “Of course I’d help out. I’m happy to.” He was impressed with how far she’d come, honestly. From a shy little thing helping nurse him back to health, to a cheerful kid wanting to go to a summer festival, and now a diligent attendant, doing her best to learn to be like her older siblings. “I’m flattered you asked.”

“I am, too,” Hamuko said. “It’s kind of an honor to be asked instead of one of the adults, or Yu-kun.”

“Yu-san was busy today,” Lavenza piped up. “He had somewhere he was going.”

“Oh? I wonder what that could be,” Hamuko mused.

“It is Monday in your world. There are a number of school-related functions that could be keeping him,” Igor said serenely. “But, in reference to what day it is, I believe well-wishes are in order. Today is the day of your birth, is it not? I do hope we were not taking you away from some sort of celebration by requesting your help.”

The twins stared at him with wide eyes. They hadn’t been aware that Igor even knew when their birthday was, much less that he would place enough regard on it to point it out. Minato averted his eyes to the floor, smiling, and when Hamuko managed to close her mouth she said quickly, “No, no, we didn’t have any plans. T-Thank you, though.”

“My siblings said to tell you happy birthday, too, even though we aren’t allowed to throw you a party,” Lavenza chimed in, and Igor sighed.

“One party per year is indulgent enough, Lavenza.”

She nodded quickly. “Of course, master.”

Minato and Hamuko laughed quietly. “We should be going,” Minato said. “I _was_ planning on taking my sister and our boyfriends to dinner, at least, and we won’t get a table if we don’t go soon.”

“Be well,” Igor said, waving them off, and the two of them headed out of the elevator back into the dorm, missing the way that Igor grinned deviously behind them. His role was to help his guests, even if, in this case, ‘help’ meant ‘distract the twins’. A small favor in exchange for Lavenza getting some proper practice in, really.

***

Hamuko nudged Minato. “I should go change, if we’re going out.” She glanced towards the living room. “Shinji? Are you here?”

“In the dining room!” he called back, and they exchanged a glance. There weren’t any lights on except the one in the kitchen, mostly blocked by the kitchen door. What was he doing in the dining room in the dark?

In hindsight, it should have been obvious, but that didn’t stop Minato from jumping in surprise and Hamuko from taking a swing at the nearest person when the lights clicked on and a crowd of their friends yelled “Surprise!” in their faces. Ryoji ended up in a gigglefit as Hamuko started apologizing profusely for nearly clocking Dojima in the face, and the rest of their friends silently thanked their lucky stars that _they_ hadn’t been the ones to volunteer to man the light switch.

Dojima, thankfully, took it all in stride. “We should really know better than to ambush a pair of trained fighters, shouldn’t we?” he said.

“That was a pretty incredible dodge, though,” Minato pointed out, as Hamuko dissolved to the floor in a puddle of embarrassment.

Shinjiro chuckled, coming over to pull her back to her feet. “Come on, everyone came for the party. You can’t spend it on the floor.”

“We apologize for startling you, Hamuko-chan, Minato-san,” Aigis said, and Minato waved her off.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. It’s not a surprise if you’re not a little startled, I guess.”

Mitsuru had driven most of the Shadow Operatives (and Naoto) in from Tokyo, Dojima had handled transporting the rest of the Investigation Team, and much to the twins’ surprise, Maya had brought Akihiko and Yukari.

“He was in town meeting with Katsuya,” Maya explained when Hamuko asked. “Apparently he’s thinking of joining the police academy next year, and wanted to get an idea of what was involved from someone who’s done it. And it was easy to stop by and pick up Yukari-chan from Kyoto on the way.” She was the only one of their adult friends that had made it; apparently everyone else was busy. That was what they got for their birthday falling on a Monday.

“Did you all just ditch school?” Minato asked in disbelief, looking around at the Investigation Team, and Yu shrugged.

“We’ve all got good grades. We’ll live.”

“Speak for yourself,” Chie said with a grin, elbowing Yosuke. “This guy might run into some trouble, missing a day.”

“Hey, shut up!”

“Stop fighting! We have to do cake!” Nanako called loudly, catching everyone’s attention. The cake stood at one end of the dining room table, two tiers and covered in buttercream frosting with red and blue decorative piping.

Mitsuru cut the cake after assuring everyone that none of the girls had anything to do with making it. It had been all Yu and Shinjiro, and Yu admitted to asking Igor for help keeping them out of the dorm for a couple hours.

“So he and Lavenza were technically messing with us the whole time,” Minato said flatly, but he was smiling. “Wow. Maybe Igor’s not a total stick-in-the-mud after all.”

Once everyone had cake and was munching away contentedly, Mitsuru asked, “So, how does it feel to be a legal adult?”

“Like I need to go to the convenience store and buy them out of sake or shochu,” Hamuko said brightly through a mouthful of cake, pointedly ignoring Maya, Dojima, Minato, and Shinjiro all facepalming. “Although, I guess we still have two minors in the house. It wouldn’t be responsible to have that much alcohol laying around anyway.” She winked at Ryoji and Ken.

Ken frowned. “I don’t even want alcohol!”

Ryoji pouted. “I’m an ageless remnant of the living embodiment of Death. I think I’m allowed to drink.”

“Hey, it’s not our fault you decided to make your birthday a month after ours,” Hamuko teased.

“Technically my first day as a human was the first day of November, so…”

“You can deal with not being legal for another three weeks, then.”

Ryoji stuffed half a slice of cake in his mouth, grumbling. “Just don’t go to any fun bars without me.”

***

When the party wound down, most of the group prepared to pack up and head out to return home, despite Minato offering them a place to stay overnight. Hamuko and Shinjiro were staying two more days, but the others insisted they needed to get back for school and work.

While Hamuko was talking with Maya off to the side, Minato managed to get Mitsuru’s attention, leaving Ryoji and Ken to debate who got to “clean” (eat) the last piece of cake. “Thank you for doing this, senpai. You really didn’t have to come all this way.”

Mitsuru smiled fondly. “Of course we did. What kind of team would we be if we didn’t come for our leader’s birthday?”

Minato groaned, but was clearly joking when he whined, “We’ve been over this. You’re the leader now. Officially. You have the title. _Please._ Just let me babysit the dorm in peace.” 

“I don’t know. I was contemplating calling you in to lead our next mission…” Mitsuru began, but shook her head, chuckling. “You know that I appreciate you looking after this place. If you enjoy it, I’m certainly not going to take you away from it.”

“Thank goodness,” Minato deadpanned. He leaned against the wall, folding his arms. “If you do need help, though, call. Hamuko mentioned a while back that Public Safety has been bothering you guys.”

Mitsuru rolled her eyes. “They don’t know what they’re looking for. It’s difficult to investigate something when you don’t even believe it exists. I think we’ve gotten them off of our backs for now, but it’s been odd how much they’ve been interested. There have been some low-level politicians pushing for more ‘transparency’ in our actions, apparently, but I can’t imagine it would improve the world for people to know that it’s almost ended three, four, six times?” She sighed. “And Kei-san has been getting emails every two weeks or so from some government-funded independent research lab. There’s a scientist that wants to set up a meeting to talk because Kei-san’s input could ‘be invaluable to their research’. They weren’t specific about why. He politely declined the first two or three times and basically told them to write back when they felt like actually revealing what they want, but he’s just started ignoring them lately. His company isn’t interested in being tied to the government.”

“I can understand why,” Minato said dryly. “What kind of information could they be interested in, that they would be emailing Nanjo-san, though? His company does so much; it could be anything. I wonder why they’re being so vague.”

“Who knows? I’m just glad our work is classified so that we don’t have to bother with things like that,” Mitsuru said. “But I do take comfort in knowing that we have enough authority to step in and assume command if there’s ever a catastrophe widespread enough that the general public is in immediate danger.”

Minato raised an eyebrow. “You mean like when a town was drowning in fog?”

“You are never going to let go of the fact that I brushed it off as a small-town murder case, are you?”

“Nope.”

Mitsuru shook her head. “Fine. The next time there is even a hint of persona-related activity, I will investigate to the best of my ability immediately. Though, I wasn’t wrong in thinking that you and Mochizuki were strong enough to handle it.”

“Not the point, Mitsuru-senpai. I had to stare down a goddess _again_. Once was enough, thank you.”

She patted him on the shoulder. “You’re the most reliable person I know when the eleventh hour arrives, Arisato. You should be proud of that.”

“Uh-huh.”

Junpei waved from over by the door, where they’d finished sorting out seating arrangements and making sure everyone had their belongings and was ready to pile back in the car. Mitsuru lifted a hand in acknowledgment, then smiled at Minato. “Happy birthday, Minato. I really do wish you the best.”

“I know. Thanks.” He gave her a hug, then trailed her towards the door to finish saying goodbye to the others as well. He hadn’t been expecting a real birthday celebration, but he was grateful to know that he had so many people who cared so much.

It also meant there was an interesting assortment of presents to open once they’d all gone home. They’d gotten distracted talking and hadn’t opened any so far, but it was a pretty impressive pile.

 _That_ was going to be fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lavenza thinks Jack Frost is cute. And is doing her best. XD
> 
> Speaking of self-indulgence… I gave my protagonists birthdays while I was working on Catch Perfect so that I would have a point of reference for how old they were supposed to be at any given time. Also to go with the fact that basically everyone else has a canon birthday (except for the PTs that aren’t Goro, as far as I know). And I realized that the birthday I’d given the twins was coming up, so… Happy Birthday, you mismatched nerds. <3
> 
> Thankfully Lavenza still has a year and a few months to get better at her duties. And I’m still practicing writing larger groups of people. ^_^;;; Next chapter, though, we’ll be heading back to a different perspective, because a certain kid’s life is about to get a lot more difficult.
> 
> (I hate so much that that new Taylor Swift song is 90% Shuake vibes. Jfc. Are you allowed to like all the lyrics and hate most of the tune?)


	7. December 16th, 2012

Dinner was always a quiet affair.

Children were to be seen and not heard, after all, and Goro did his best to stay as small and out-of-the-way as possible most days. His foster parents didn’t care how his day had been. There was just a meagre portion of food waiting for him as there usually was, and he listened in silence as his foster parents chatted about work and neighborhood gossip and enjoyed a few glasses of sake.

He really hadn’t had a good day. Ever since his peers had found out he was a foster child, they had been relentless. They were jealous that he was the top of the class, and they took every opportunity to try to bury that accomplishment beneath what he was.

_Your mom must have killed herself to get away from you. I bet you look like your dad and she hated you._

_Why would anyone want to take care of a kid that’s not theirs? Ew._

_Someone with no parents can’t be top of the class! He’s got to be cheating!_

He’d heard it all. It was nothing new, nothing that other foster families and other children at the institutions hadn’t used against him. But it still wore on him, to have to hear it day after day.

When his foster parents were finished eating, it fell to him, as usual, to box up the leftovers for their work lunches the following day and clean up the dishes. He was never allowed seconds, only the tiny portion they had given him, otherwise there wouldn’t be enough to make up decent-sized lunches. Sometimes he was able to sneak an extra bite or two, but most of the time he just went hungry until he could find something to eat on his way to school the following morning. He’d learned that convenience stores were often busy enough at that time of day that it was easy to slip a pre-packaged onigiri into a jacket pocket. If not, there was always his fallback of stealing an apple from the display in front of the supermarket. One day he was going to have to go in there and pay back all the yen he owed them, and thank them for unknowingly keeping him from starving.

His foster parents had cut on the news in the living room, and he glanced over as he carried a stack of dirty plates from the table to the kitchen. It was election day, and there had been nothing but chatter on the streets and trains about how long the lines had been to vote and how it interfered with people’s work schedules. But he caught the tail end of something the anchor was saying, and froze.

_“--strict, Shido Masayoshi took the House of Representatives seat by an impressive thirty-two percent margin of votes!”_

The plates slipped from Goro’s fingers and hit the floor with a crash that he barely registered. Shido had been elected to the Diet? Shido had become that powerful a politician? His thoughts careened in frantic circles. He was never going to be able to get near a Diet member. It would have been hard enough to get a meeting with someone on just the district level; a teenager getting an appointment with a member of the Diet would be unheard of unless he played his hand early, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. He wanted to scope out Shido _before_ he revealed the truth. That was the best way to form a theory on what the man’s reaction would be.

“Are you going to clean that up, or not?” his foster mother snapped, jarring him from his thoughts. He hurriedly stumbled into the kitchen to fetch the broom, trying not to step on the shards as he went. The larger shards he picked up and put in the trash by hand, and then he set to work trying to sweep up the splinters. That was when he heard his foster mother say quietly, obviously not meaning for him to hear, “It would have been so much easier for everyone if he’d just never been born, wouldn’t it?”

Goro shuddered, fingers clenching on the dustpan. It was the sake talking. It had to be. He’d done everything right. He behaved, he got good grades, he was quiet and unobtrusive. But fear coiled inside of him that this place would be just like the others. He’d made a mistake at last, and he’d be sent away again.

This couldn’t possibly be the first time someone had expressed a sentiment like that. But it was the first time he’d _heard_ it, and it made him feel ill, because it was true. It would be better for everyone if he’d never been born. These people wouldn’t have to deal with him; the institutions wouldn’t have had to find a place for yet another child to sleep. His mother would still be alive, unburdened by the living scandal he was. And it would be better for him, too. Now that he considered it, not existing would have been far preferable to homes where he was hit and bullied and rejected, abused and starved and ignored.

Why should someone that was unwanted continue to exist?

He finished cleaning as quickly as he could, packing away the leftovers and putting the broom away and washing the dishes he hadn’t broken. Then he tentatively walked into the living room, waiting until his foster parents noticed him and then bowing quickly.

“I’m sorry for breaking the plates. I was careless.”

His foster father scowled. “Yeah, you were. That’s three plates we have to replace now.”

“I know… It was an accident…” Before he could think about what he was saying, the words slipped out, a hint of fear in his tone, “Please don’t send me away…!”

His foster parents exchanged a glance, and his foster mother shrugged. “We’ll think about it. Now go to your room. Our show is coming on.”

Goro fled as quickly as he could to his tiny bedroom, closing the door behind him and crawling into bed. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. He’d given them a weapon; now they knew what he was afraid of. Now they could use that against him. Why did he even bother?

He pulled his thin blanket over himself, curling tightly into a ball. It was childish, but he wanted his mother. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hugged, or touched at all with any intent other than to hurt or control him. All he had left was the tiniest hope that maybe, just maybe, his father was a good person. He seemed like a good person, the few times Goro had heard him speak on TV. Maybe there had been a mistake, and he didn’t know that he had a son. Maybe he, finally, would be the one person in this world that actually wanted Goro. Maybe they could be a real family.

He just had to last until then. Be brave, be strong, and not let anyone see him cry. He could do it, he knew he could, if he just tried hard enough. It would be like wearing a mask, so that he would be safe. He’d already sort of been doing that, making himself be good instead of afraid and angry at his situation.

Swallowing down the urge to cry, he pulled his library book from under his pillow to read until they made him cut the lights out. He’d discovered a fondness for Sherlock Holmes after picking up _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ on a whim one day. It was exciting, trying to piece the clues together and solve it before Holmes revealed the answer at the end of the story. He wanted to be like that one day: a detective, solving crimes and making bad people pay for their actions. Maybe he could find a reason to arrest all of the terrible people that had ever taken care of him. It was a silly dream, but he clung to it like a lifeline. Two tiny goals, to one day be a detective and to one day face his father. They were all he had, but without them, he was nothing.

He put the book away when he heard his foster parents coming upstairs, cutting the light off and diving under the covers before they could come in and tell him to go to bed. At this point, anything he could do to get back in their good graces was worth it. He fell asleep curled around his pillow, trying to picture what life would be like with a real father.

Someone who loved him… That would be incredible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The worst thing about hoping for something is when that hope is betrayed.
> 
> (I am learning way too much about the Japanese government. And now that I’m learning too much, I’m desperately trying to figure out how Shido was elected Prime Minister. The general public doesn’t vote for Prime Minister. I know that I’m probably just supposed to go with “it’s not reality” but still. X’D)


	8. February 11th, 2013

“Happy Birthday, Akira!”

Eyes widened at the cake that was set in front of him, topped with thirteen flickering candles in the darkened dining room. It was frosted in white, with swirled designs in colored sugar, and in the candlelight it glittered like magic. His father backed up, and his mother took a picture of his astonished face, illuminated in the soft glow.

“Go on, sweetie, blow out your candles and make a wish.”

Akira took a deep breath, cheeks puffed up comically, and blew really hard on the candles. His mother took another picture, and all the candles went out in one breath, along with loose colored sugar scattering all over the table behind the cake. A slightly-annoyed expression crossed his mother’s face, and she set the camera aside to sweep it into a napkin. But her voice was cheerful as she said, “All of them at once! Your wish is sure to come true, then.”

“I hope so,” Akira said, kicking his feet. He was glad that they didn’t ask what his wish was.

_I wish my parents would be proud of me._

Not that they weren’t, of course, but it didn’t feel real, because it wasn’t any of the things that he really cared about. They were proud of him when he came home with an S in every subject on his report card, but not when he demonstrated that he could do a handstand on a balance beam. Handstands didn’t win medals, not like the third years in the gymnastics club that were already talking about going to the Olympics once they reached high school.

Good grades and winning didn’t matter to him, but they made his parents happy, at least. Akira just wanted to learn to do backflips. And maybe cook, but ever since he’d tried to make cookies and they’d scolded him for not cleaning the kitchen thoroughly enough, he hadn’t had the guts to try to make anything else, even though the cookies had turned out good.

His father brought over a wrapped box, setting it in front of him as his mother moved the cake back so they could cut it. “Here you go.”

Akira eagerly tore into the present, shredding the wrapping paper and pulling the lid from the box. Inside there was a book, and Akira pulled it out and flipped through it almost reverently. It was about the languages of flowers, traditional _hanakotoba_ and the one used in Victorian England, and more modern variations as well. There were beautiful pictures of every flower, and he hugged it to his chest. “Thank you, thank you!”

He hoped this meant they approved. His mother had been skeptical, months ago, when he’d first brought home a book about _hanakotoba_. He’d waited a long time to look into it, still sore over being half-accused of trying to steal flowers at the spring festival in Sumaru, and when he’d finally worked up the nerve to check out the book from the school library, his mother’s response had been to remind him not to let his grades slip because he was researching ‘frivolous things’. But this book...this book was perfect. It would get a prominent place on his shelves.

“I still don’t know why you’re so interested in that sort of thing, but if it makes you happy…” his father said. Akira smiled, but registered the backhanded comment. They still didn’t approve, but at least they weren’t telling him to stop. He liked learning about flowers. He wanted to keep learning, even if they didn’t understand why.

***

The cake was delicious, and he thanked them profusely for the day off so that they could all have lunch together. As much as he wanted to devour his new book right then, he put it carefully in his room for that evening and decided to go to the park. Having it all to himself would be a new experience. He accepted his parents’ reminders not to cause any trouble with practiced indifference; if anything happened, he would be blamed for getting involved whether it was his fault or not, so there was no point in worrying.

The play equipment was perfect for practicing some of his moves, and no one was around to stop him from using the top of the monkey bars as a balance beam, or trying to climb up the outside of the castle-like structure that led to the slide. He fell a few times, but it was too much fun ‘storming the castle’ to stop, and he could tell that his balance had improved from when he started with the gymnastics club a year ago.

Eventually, once he’d managed to sit triumphantly on the roof of the slide, he went to get a drink from one of the vending machines nearby, and as he drank his Dr. Salt he marvelled at how quiet the streets were in the middle of the day. Everyone was at work or school; it gave him a strange sense of freedom.

As he moved to throw the can away, he caught a glimpse of a blue glimmer down a side street, and his eyes widened.

“No… No, just ignore it. It’s not real. You’re not crazy.” He’d only mentioned the blue door once, pointing it out to his mother a few years ago while they’d been out shopping, and she’d looked at him like he’d said the sky was green and informed him pointedly that there was no door there. He’d insisted, but she’d scolded him for making a scene in the supermarket over imaginary things, and from then on he’d determinedly pretended that he didn’t see it out of the corner of his eye every once in a while.

But… no one was around now. No one would notice if he just...went to look. No one would stop him.

His feet started moving before he’d made the conscious decision to go, and as he got closer he could see it, an ornately-detailed, translucent door in a surprisingly comforting shade of blue. He stared at it, trying to swallow down his sudden nervousness. He’d never been this close to it before. Tentatively, he reached out, expecting his fingers to pass right through and hit the brick wall behind. But they connected with the door, solid wood beneath his fingertips, and Akira stared in shock at his hand.

The door was _real_.

He grabbed for the doorknob in a sudden flare of bravery, but as his hand wrapped around it, there was a voice. He didn’t know if it was in his head or all around him, but it had absolute authority wrapped in warmth and kindness.

_**Not yet.** _

He stumbled away from the door as if he’d been burned, his eyes wide. Not _yet?_

If there was one thing that he had learned in thirteen years, it was that disobeying an adult _always_ led to punishment. Even if the one giving the order was a formless voice that sounded like it was only forbidding him for his own good. He resisted the urge to reach for the door again, shoving his hands in his pockets to contain them and walking away quickly. It was real. He wasn’t crazy.

That was enough for now.

***

“Master Igor!” Lavenza yelled, as the Velvet Room shuddered under their feet. She’d been studying Margaret’s compendium in the lounge when the room shook, and now she shoved it away and went running to find her master or her siblings.

Elizabeth caught her in the hallway, with Igor a few steps behind. “Slow down, Lavenza. Do you not remember this happening when Yu-kun first arrived?”

Lavenza’s eyes widened. “Does that mean we’re getting a new guest?” she asked, her mouth falling open. It was supposed to be her turn, and she didn’t know if she was ready. She got a lot less Jack Frosts now, but they still popped up way too often.

“Not quite yet,” Igor said, though he led the way down the hall and beckoned them to follow. “His awakening is still a while off. But he got close enough that the Velvet Room has reacted to him, beginning to shape a room from his heart.”

“I wonder what it will be!” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps a plane, this time, since we can do vehicles now.”

“Can’t it be one of the rooms we have already, though?” Lavenza asked. “Like the library. I wouldn’t mind meeting a guest in the library.”

Igor shook his head. “It depends on what is reflected in our guest’s heart. I must say, though, most do not usually have the mentality to approach the door in the real world until after their awakening. To push past that subtle influence that it radiates and get close anyway...one day this guest will be interesting indeed.”

Elizabeth wondered to herself if perhaps this guest would have something to do with that very strange, shadow-haunted subway. It seemed larger than it had been when she first discovered it, but it still didn’t appear to be threatening. The shadows that haunted its tunnels merely roamed without purpose, and it didn’t _go_ anywhere. There weren’t even any trains. So she said nothing, still, confident that their master would know if something was amiss in meta-space.

They eventually located the source of the miniature quake, and Lavenza opened the door for them to step through. But Elizabeth and Igor hesitated in the doorway, seeing what the room appeared to be.

It was fuzzy, still translucent and indistinct since their guest had not properly arrived, but it was clearly a jail cell set into the opposing wall, with a barred door. Elizabeth lifted a hand to her mouth, concerned despite herself. “Master… What does this mean?”

Igor stared at the room for a long moment. “Our future guest bears an imprisoned heart,” he said at last. “I would guess that for whatever reason, he has chosen to imprison his true self and show a different face to the world.”

“That means...he is not on a journey, the way that the others have been,” Elizabeth said.

“Not in a traditional sense,” Igor said. “But there is no use in speculating now. We will know when the time comes.” He bid his attendants return to what they had been doing, but lingered, looking at the cell. There was a growing distortion in the collective unconscious, and it had already influenced humanity in ways that posed a threat. He could recognize the signs that led to ruin. Human will was a powerful thing; they had nearly destroyed themselves many times already, in recent memory, and succeeded once. But if this guest was already presenting in such a unique way, approaching the room even before his awakening, perhaps he had the potential to be the Trickster that would stave off that ruin. Their other guests were powerful, certainly, but it would take a certain kind of heart to face the challenges ahead.

He could only wait and see what would become of things at this point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *vomits headcanons and setup details everywhere* Akira’s been a tiny rebel his whole life, apparently. XD There is a reason I'm doing it like this, I promise.
> 
> I’m trying to write Akira’s parents in a way that shows they _do_ care. Most of the time, anyway. They’re trying to be good parents, but they’re also too concerned with themselves and how they think things should be, and they don’t always realize what they’re doing to him. How a child interprets a comment or an action isn’t always how it was intended, after all. Whether that makes it worse or not, that they could be so oblivious to their child’s feelings, is subjective. But I’m trying to make a more clear distinction between them and Akechi’s guardians, who just flat-out don’t give a damn.
> 
> (...not a lot happens in 2013, in my notes. Huh. Things kick into high gear at the end of the year, though. Next chapter, we see some new people, revisit some old ideas, and do some _psience_. It’s been a slow climb up this roller coaster. Let’s hover over the drop. XDDD)


	9. September 22nd, 2013

All things considered, it had been a very peaceful year. There had been no major shadow-related incidents, the world hadn’t attempted to come to an end, and everyone was doing well. Yu and the older members of the Investigation Team had passed their entrance exams and gotten into college (despite Yu complaining that he shouldn’t have to, because he was just going to join the Shadow Operatives anyway. Mitsuru had put her foot down). Yukari had been teaching Nanako and Lavenza archery in her spare time. The little league team that Junpei helped coach had been runners-up for the World Series. Lavenza had finally gotten down to only one unintentional Jack Frost per practice session. Elizabeth still missed the overall point of escalators as convenience, and not a challenge. And everyone was _happy_.

Mitsuru was fairly certain that it was all about to go to hell. Figuratively, of course.

The emails that Kei had been getting had stopped for months. Both he and Mitsuru had assumed the person on the other end had simply given up, but no. After the extended period of silence, a new email...sent to _both of them_.

> _I’d hoped to meet face-to-face before playing my hand, but you’re stubborn, Nanjo-san. I’d like to meet with you and Kirijo-san...as the backer and leader of the Shadow Operatives._

And that was how they found themselves in Mitsuru’s office, waiting for the arrival of the annoyingly persistent scientist who apparently knew about the existence of the Shadow Operatives. When Kikuno showed her in, accompanied by an official-looking man in a suit, Mitsuru was immediately defensive. Being part of the national police was one thing, but getting involved with scientists, especially government-funded scientists, was another. If this woman knew about the Shadow Operatives, there was a high chance she was investigating things she shouldn’t be messing with.

“Nanjo-san, Kirijo-san, thank you so much for meeting with me today,” the woman said, inclining her head politely. “I’m Isshiki Wakaba. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. This is Sakura-san, my liaison and unofficial bodyguard.”

“A pleasure, despite the high amount of emails,” Mitsuru said. “Why exactly are you so eager to meet with us, Isshiki-san?”

“You mentioned you thought my input could help your research. What are you researching?” Kei asked.

Wakaba took a seat across from them, while her companion remained standing, scanning the room. “I’ve spent the past few years researching what I’ve come to call ‘cognitive psience’,” she began eagerly. “It’s the study of the human mind and the supernatural forces that can be born from human cognition. I believe that there is an entire world out there, built out of the unconsciousness of all of humanity, and if it could be accessed we would see that it is inhabited by our innermost selves.”

Mitsuru and Kei exchanged a look. “And you believe that we could help with that...how?” Kei said. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but neither Mitsuru-san nor myself are scientists.”

This wasn’t what they had been expecting. Both of them had experience with locations within meta-space, even without counting the obvious answer that was the Velvet Room. In that moment they silently agreed that they needed to find out everything that this woman knew.

Wakaba nodded. “You’re not, I’m aware, but your companies were both involved with programs involving cognitive shadows and technology that could be used to access cognitive spaces. The Nanjo Group, specifically, had a partnership with government research agencies once.”

“And we broke that off when they used it to nearly end humanity,” Kei said pointedly. “I believe that having the Foreign Minister and a general of the civil defense force use such knowledge in such a terrible way is reason enough to withdraw.”

“You’re also connected to Sonomura Maki-san and Adachi Tohru-san,” Wakaba said. “Sonomura-san was at the core of a widespread cognitive event that was kept from the general public, and after tracking down information on Adachi-san’s testimony about that murder case, the things he described sound extremely similar to my theories on cognitive strongholds. I was hoping I could speak to both of them to hear more about their experiences. Ideally I’d like to speak to everyone involved, but I haven’t been able to find any information about anyone else.”

“That’s because the others are, or were, _minors_ ,” Kei said defensively. Something about hearing this woman speak so casually about events that had affected all of them so deeply was irritating him. “If you wish to hear more about what happened during the SEBEC incident, you can speak with me, but I will not allow you to bother Maki or the children involved in the Inaba murders with your questions. It is up to Mitsuru-san whether you can speak to Adachi-san.”

That made Wakaba go quiet, and she hesitated. “I...apologize for letting my enthusiasm get the best of me. I didn’t realize the others involved in the murders were children; I have a daughter of my own and wouldn’t want her involved in something like that either.” She inclined her head to Mitsuru. “Kirijo-san, if I could speak with Adachi-san, I would be extremely grateful.”

After careful consideration, Mitsuru reluctantly agreed. “You can have fifteen minutes.” She fixed Kei with a look, then headed out to retrieve the Shadow Operatives’ single prisoner.

There was nothing but silence for a few minutes, and then Kei sighed, folding his arms. He spared a glance for Wakaba’s bodyguard, still standing to one side and now looking bored, and then asked, “Why are you so interested in Maki?”

Wakaba mimicked his posture. “Based on the information remaining after your group broke off partnership, the DEVA System created by SEBEC actually gave access to someone’s cognitive space in a form that anyone could pass through. Sonomura-san might be the first instance of someone entering a true cognitive stronghold.”

“You believe that other people could create something like the world of Maki’s heart?” Kei asked, raising an eyebrow. “Her world spanned the entirety of our district; that seems impossible without something like the DEVA System serving as a catalyst.” Or the unholy powers of the Crawling Chaos distorting reality, but he wasn’t going to say that.

“The system only allowed an entrance to manifest in reality, as far as I can tell. The world itself would have been entirely Sonomura-san’s creation,” Wakaba explained. “A cognitive stronghold would normally only manifest on an unconscious level, in a meta-space. My theory is that when a person’s worldview becomes distorted enough, the stronghold forms to protect their greatest desire, and the size and shape of that stronghold will vary depending on the what view, exactly, is distorted. It could span a single building or an entire city, if someone’s thought process was warped enough.”

“So a whole town would be a snap, right?”

Both Kei and Wakaba looked up. Adachi was standing in the doorway with Mitsuru, his hands cuffed in front of him. He walked over languidly to flop on the opposite end of the couch from Wakaba, prompting her bodyguard to shift, suddenly alert. But she waved him off. “I don’t think he’s a threat, Sakura-san. I’m extremely interested in what he has to say.” Her gaze was bright as she focused on Adachi. “Are you saying that your stronghold was the entirety of your town?”

Adachi grinned lazily. “The kids called them dungeons, you know?” he said offhandedly. “But yeah, an absolutely ruined version of the town. I think you’re a little off, though, because none of them ever mentioned their ‘greatest desire’. And there wasn’t anything like that in mine.”

Wakaba’s eyes widened, and she pulled a small notebook and pen from her bag, flipping it open eagerly. “What was the purpose of your...dungeon, then?” she asked. “If it wasn’t to protect part of yourself?”

Adachi shrugged. “It was definitely...what did you say? A distorted worldview? I was definitely seeing a distorted town. And was king of the castle, too! But those kids… They’re brats, but they gave me a hell of a wake-up call.” He tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling and considering what to say. Mitsuru had warned him not to give away anyone else’s identity. “I’ve talked to their leader. We write letters, every once in a while. We’re still trying to sort out what happened. But all of their dungeons were built from their repressed inner selves, not some kind of desire. And when they faced that inner self, they got their peace of mind or whatever Leader Brat was saying.”

Mitsuru had told him not to mention personas, either, since they didn’t know how much this woman knew.

“Fascinating.” Wakaba was taking notes, pen all-but flying across the paper. “So a ‘dungeon’ containing a self that one keeps imprisoned in the depths of their heart… That actually makes a lot of sense. Perhaps cognitive spaces form in different ways for different purposes. A ‘dungeon’ to imprison the rejected inner shadow self, a ‘stronghold’ to subconsciously guard a desire…” Her gaze flicked up to him. “And if the source of that desire is removed, the stronghold crumbles.”

“So you’re saying mine was one of those things,” Adachi drawled. “I’m not sure what the ‘source of my desire’ would have been, though.” But even as he spoke, a frown crossed his face. He thought back to hanging around in the town, in the wreckage of the Dojima house, before Yu and his friends had shown up. He remembered looking at the dishes that had survived, the mugs that they used for coffee and tea. His mug, with the red stripe, sitting alongside the other three.

There was no way that it could be something that simple, could it? But looking back now with a clear head...maybe.

“Maki-san, then,” Wakaba continued, not seeming to notice his expression as she turned back to Kei. “Would hers have been more of a dungeon or a stronghold?”

Kei frowned. “Given that criteria, it’s hard to say. Her version of the town was how she remembered it, but also distorted in many ways. I know that she had some form of desire to have a normal, better life where she wasn’t ill. And we faced something that could have been considered an inner shadow, the darkness of her heart brought to life, but whether it was something repressed or not is a judgment I’m not suited to make.”

Mitsuru had been quiet, listening intently. Her only true experience with meta-space was the Dark Hour and Tartarus, both of which had been unintentional side-effects of her company’s meddling with the full-moon shadows. But Minato had explained about the dungeons, and Kei had told her about the bleed-over of the collective unconsciousness in Sumaru and Mikage-cho, and she’d come to a pretty solid conclusion on her own.

She didn’t trust Isshiki Wakaba, no matter how earnest she seemed.

“What exactly is the reason that you want to learn more about these cognitive locations?” she said pointedly, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. “I can’t see putting all of this research into it without having some sort of goal in mind. What is it? Because the notion of walking around in someone else’s heart seems like it could be a very dangerous thing.”

Wakaba nodded solemnly. “Obviously there’s always a chance that something could be used for ‘evil’, but that’s a risk with any type of breakthrough. Overcoming a shadow self like Adachi-san is implying those kids did obviously helped them with their issues, but going too far and actually destroying someone’s inner shadow could shut them down entirely. You’d essentially be taking out their id, or even their ego itself depending on the kind of shadow.”

Mitsuru and Kei, and even Adachi, looked alarmed by how close the Investigation Team could have come to accidentally breaking one of their own. “That’s…” Mitsuru began, but Wakaba kept going.

“It could also have helpful applications as well,” she said. “If breaking through someone’s cognitive stronghold was possible, we could help people that traditional therapy or rehabilitation wouldn’t reach.”

“Marching into someone’s head and literally changing their mind? I dunno if that sounds like a good plan,” Adachi commented, and as much as Kei hated to admit it, he was forced to agree with the murderer.

“I have experience with seeing someone’s greatest desire,” he said. “It is an uncomfortable feeling, the highest violation of privacy. I dealt with it then because lives were quite literally on the line and it was the only option that we had, but I would not condone something like that if there were any other option.” Hypnos Tower had been the worst of the three by far, at least in his opinion.

Wakaba wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I believe that the benefits of this research will ultimately outweigh the risks.” She closed her notebook, getting to her feet. “Thank you for meeting with me today. I apologize for my persistent emails, but this research is very important to me.” She offered Mitsuru a hand.

Mitsuru shook her hand with only a hint of reluctance. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else to know about the Shadow Operatives. There are very few in the government with precise knowledge of what we do.”

“Only the cabinet members, and those in high positions with the national police and Public Safety,” Wakaba said. “I found out through sheer luck.” She glanced at her bodyguard, smiling. “And I suppose Sakura-san knows, too, but anyone that works for the PSIA knows how to keep a secret.”

‘Sakura-san’ looked unamused by the entire exchange, but nodded. Kei got up to shake Wakaba’s hand as well, and while Mitsuru escorted Adachi back to his cell, he walked them to the building’s lobby and bid them farewell.

When both of them were back in Mitsuru’s office, Mitsuru said immediately, “We need to look in on that research every once in a while. I do not trust this not to spawn some sort of calamity.” If a PSIA agent was acting as her liaison, clearly someone in the government had a solid interest in Isshiki Wakaba’s research.

“I understand,” Kei said. “Meddling with the human mind has never turned out well, but someone like that, I think, wouldn’t listen even if we explained about Pandora, the rumors, the full-moon shadows, or Nyx. She’s quite wrapped up in very idealistic applications of this ‘cognitive psience’, and has minimized the dangers in her own mind.” He sighed. “Thankfully, I cannot imagine she will get much farther than theory. The DEVA System’s blueprints and technology have been mostly lost since the incident in Sumaru, and what remains is held by my company; it would take far more than one scientist to reassemble the missing information required to make a functioning version. And as she does not appear to bear potential, there isn’t much she can do with just research.”

“Thankfully…” Mitsuru echoed, but worry still nagged at her. Kirijo scientists had managed plenty of damage even without direct access to meta-space. If Isshiki Wakaba learned too much, or someone with ill intentions got hold of her research, it could be potentially disastrous. The last thing the world needed was another doomsday cult or an attempt to wipe out humanity.

Hopefully the government would grow tired of her resultless research and revoke her funding. That would put a stop to things with no further effort needed. The ideal outcome for everyone, really.

Isshiki Wakaba didn’t know what she was messing with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s only so many people that know details about topics like this, after all.
> 
> This is more infodump than I wanted, but… *loud shrugging* Hopefully this all makes sense??? This note would be a million miles long so here, take [this post](http://twilightknight17.tumblr.com/post/166398597024/) I wrote up while I was trying to get all this coherent enough to use in the chapter. There’s a lot of very tiny bits in here alongside all the headcanon.
> 
> The game wasn’t really clear about whether Wakaba actually had a Palace, or if her shadow was in Mementos, was it? I could see her desire to complete her research warping in some way, but I don’t know if it would be to the point that it would distort her perception of reality...


	10. March 23rd, 2014

“I bring you... _megidolaon!_ ”

Erebus roared in agony, staggering towards her before collapsing into a heap and dispersing into motes of darkness. Elizabeth closed her compendium with a final-sounding thump and glanced up at the golden statues of her friends that served as the lock on the Door.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware when I destroy it, but it should not trouble you for a long time now,” she said to the statues. “Though I must admit, it is weaker than it used to be. It’s rather odd.”

It would be a good thing if Erebus stopped re-forming. The Seal would no longer be needed, humanity would have improved, and Minato and Ryoji would be free, their souls no longer tied to the barrier between humanity and Nyx. It didn’t affect their daily lives, but it was still a burden.

For some reason, though, things didn’t feel right. Human society didn’t seem to have changed enough to weaken Erebus this much. It had gone down so easily that she hadn’t even felt the urge to move the battle elsewhere. It was hardly a _challenge_ anymore, not like dueling one of their guests or one of her siblings would be, and it was unnerving.

She stared up at the Door, uncertain and anxious for a reason she couldn’t explain. The Sea, normally neutral, felt overbearing all of a sudden, pressing in on all sides with a strange, crawling feeling on her skin. She’d been considering revisiting the subway, since it had been almost a year since she’d last looked in on it. Nothing had changed on her prior visit, and training Lavenza and preparing for a new guest had taken up much of her time. The subway had simply slipped her mind. But with the strange feeling she had now, she just wanted to go home as quickly as possible.

Opening a door to the Velvet Room took only a second, and as soon as she stepped through into the familiar blue hallways, the uncomfortable feeling vanished. Walking purposefully to the library, she put her compendium on the shelf alongside the others and dusted off her hands. Perhaps she could get Theodore to play cards with her. Beating him would certainly help shake off the last of her anxiety. If not, she would have to see if Minato was available. He’d been teaching her to cook, but it wasn’t going very well.

As she headed to look for Theodore, she spotted Belladonna coming towards her down the hallway and waved. But before she could say anything, Belladonna said, “Ah, Elizabeth, I’ve been looking for you. Our master has called us all together.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Is something the matter?”

“He did not say. I believe he wishes to tell all of us at once, so as to avoid repeating himself.” Belladonna beckoned her to follow. “Come, the others are already there.”

Elizabeth followed her, winding through the rooms and hallways until they joined Nameless, Margaret, Theodore, and Lavenza in the lounge, scattered on the furniture around Igor’s armchair. The Master of the Velvet Room looked at them all solemnly, one by one, and sighed. “There is a distortion in the consciousness of humanity.”

“It must be severe, if you’ve called us to speak of it,” Margaret said quietly, hands folded in her lap.

Igor nodded. “More severe than prior instances. It has grown strong enough to begin to override other manifestations of consciousness. Hasn’t it, Elizabeth?”

She realized immediately that he meant Erebus. “Is that why Erebus is weaker?” she asked sharply.

Igor raised a knowing eyebrow, smiling. “I expected that my wanderer would already be aware. I presume that you have also seen the form that the distortion I speak of has taken?”

Elizabeth hesitated as they all looked at her. “The subway, master? I… I have not been there in the last eleven months, but I did investigate two or three times. There did not seem to be anything dangerous there save for wayward shadows.”

“Yes, the subway. It has come into form under the name Mementos.” Igor steepled his fingers. “Humanity has been building a place for themselves in the collective unconsciousness where they no longer have to think. It is a ruin that has been nearly seen many times before. The Crawling Chaos once said that the masses will always desire a leader that decides everything for them, and to an extent, that is true. In prior incarnations, that desire has manifested in ways such as trusting everything to fortune-telling...or mindlessly believing the prophecies of a book of lies.”

Belladonna and Nameless glanced at each other. They knew all about belief strong enough to bring ruin.

“However,” Igor continued, “when that desire grows too strong, we see the appearance of a Trickster to drive it back. Our prior Trickster is no longer with us, and was not known by that name, but it was indeed what he was. A force to oppose fate, to drive back the ruin that robbed humanity of their ability to think for themselves.”

“A paradox…” Belladonna murmured, and the ache of grief for their lost guest was strong for a moment.

Lavenza looked around at them all: her master, her ‘parents’, her siblings. From her place beside Margaret, she asked tentatively, “Our next guest will be a Trickster, then, master?”

“I believe so. But there is also a complication. The Trickster is not the only one who will awaken. I do not know what our master intends, but we will not have a lone guest. And that other guest may not necessarily be in alignment with the Trickster.”

There was a confused murmur around the room. It had been a long time since more than one person with the power of the Wild Card had awakened at the same time. That could only mean that the situation was dire indeed. Or, perhaps…

“Master,” Nameless began, but Igor shook his head.

“For now…” he said, and then, for once, seemed to hesitate. “For now, I would like you all to retire to the library. Look over the older compendiums, and look for patterns that differentiate a Trickster’s journey. I will need all of you to be strong to overcome this trial.”

“Master Igor, why is--” Theodore tried, but was cut off.

“I do not often give you orders, but I am giving one now. Go.”

Exchanging anxious glances, the attendants filed from the lounge. Igor watched them go, knowing that it was probably too late. He could not press upon them to hurry; they would grow suspicious, and while he needed them to be strong, above all, he needed them to be safe. And they would be safest once they could reach the compendiums and have a means to protect themselves. He had hoped the distortion would not spread this quickly, before their new guests were prepared to awaken, but humanity had decreed it otherwise.

**“The appearance of a Trickster does not guarantee the aversion of ruin.”**

Igor looked up at the door opposite the one that his attendants had disappeared though. A perfect copy of him stood in the doorway, watching the Master of the Velvet Room with a familiar, amused smile. But there was an edge to it that made the doppelganger’s entire presence _wrong_. Igor stared down his copy calmly. “You’ve grown stronger than I anticipated, if you were able to make your way in here.”

Silently, he lamented that time had run out quicker than he anticipated, as well.

The copy’s unsettling smile widened. **“You underestimate the desire of foolish humans. I have been born from their wishes. They turn to me, and not to you.”**

“Humanity has faced such adversity before, and always those with the willpower for life and truth and change have prevailed,” Igor said. “I believe in the intrinsic goodness of humanity.”

 **“You would. You are merely the mouthpiece of that goodness, acting where he cannot.”** The false Igor took a step into the room, showing his hands as if to indicate that he was harmless. Igor didn’t believe it for a second. **“I wonder, do you enjoy games as your master does?”**

Igor showed no visible reaction to the copy’s words, but his voice went cold. “My master has faith in humanity, as do I. Any ‘games’ played have not been for enjoyment. If you wish to see how things will play out, then do so, but do not expect a lack of resistance. Those with the power to grasp their own fate are not to be underestimated.”

The copy chuckled, a deep, threatening sound. **“I know well how such games end. Your aid exists to tip the balance in humanity’s favor. So I will play once I remove that imbalance.”**

“What have you done?” Igor said sharply. But the false version just laughed, and the Master of the Velvet Room felt the unmistakable presence of shadows. He took a deep breath. “...be safe, all of you.”

***

The attendants had stopped partway to the library, distracted mid-conversation.

“He’s _never_ dismissed us like that,” Theodore insisted. “Something is wrong.”

“As much as I hate to say it, Theo is correct,” Elizabeth sighed. “Something is indeed wrong. Not only is our master acting strangely, I had a strange feeling in the Sea earlier. It’s as if...the shadows are restless.”

Belladonna shook her head. “He must have a good reason. He asked us to go through the compendiums, and that is what we should be doing, not hovering in the hallways questioning his judgment. He is our master. If we cannot trust him and each other, we will have nothing.”

“...as you say, Lady Belladonna,” Elizabeth said reluctantly, turning to the hall that led towards the library. But she froze, eyes widening in uncharacteristic fear as she saw what was waiting in the hallway, forming silently while they hadn’t been looking.

A shadow rose from the blue carpet, roiling formlessly for a moment before bursting into being. A cognitive demon, and as the attendants watched, more formed behind it. Chernobog, Moloch, Mot, Nebiros… All of them and more, spawning _inside the Room_. That shouldn’t be possible, and yet they were forced to dodge as one of the shadows cast maeigaon, shredding the drapes and knocking them out of their shocked stupor.

“Run!” Belladonna ordered, snatching up Lavenza and Nameless’s hands. They couldn’t summon without the compendiums; without them, they were as powerless as a persona-user in normal space, other than their enhanced strength and resilience. And they unfortunately could not punch that many shadows to death with their bare hands.

“What’s happening?!” Lavenza cried, as Elizabeth and Theodore rushed ahead to take point.

“We don’t know,” Margaret said. “This has never happened before. But if we can take another route to the library, everything will be okay.” She cursed the fact that they didn’t have the books with them, but they had never needed to carry the compendiums in their _home_ when there was not a guest to attend. Unfettered shadows had _never_ been able to access the Velvet Room. Something was terribly wrong, and she now realized that Theodore was right, that their master knew. He’d sent them to the library, literally _ordered_ them out of the lounge…

_Was he okay?_

Their master was strong, but against this many shadows…

“If we cut across past our rooms, we can take the back hall to the library!” Theodore called. There was a chorus of affirmatives as they were forced to duck another spell. As they rounded the corner that would lead to their rooms, though, they realized there were more shadows up ahead, and were forced to stop.

“I have an idea,” Elizabeth said breathlessly. “The doorway to Iwatodai. If we can reach Minato-san and the others…!”

“Of course they would help us,” Margaret finished, already turning away from the shadow-infested hallway. The Iwatodai door was closest to where they were, and Margaret, Elizabeth, and Theodore led the charge, sprinting past the last hallway intersection. Margaret gestured sharply, and ahead of them, the door flew open.

But then Lavenza screamed, and they turned back, realizing they’d been separated at the intersection as a Melchizedek and an Abbadon emerged from the side hallway to block the way.

It was too late. They had been cut off.

“Theo!” Lavenza wailed, reaching for them in a panic. “Elizabeth! Margaret!”

“Lavenza!” Margaret cried, reaching back, but Nameless glared at them, his expression obvious even through the blindfold.

“Do not concern yourselves with us! Go!” he said furiously. It would do no good if _all_ of them were taken.

Elizabeth and Theodore were prepared to ignore him, but Margaret, knowing what he was thinking, grabbed them and dragged them screaming through the door. Belladonna and Nameless were left clutching the youngest attendant protectively as shadows prowled around them.

Shapes that they recognized as the four archangels materialized, and Michael stared down at them, not able to hover much in the hallway, but enough to be intimidating. “Those three may have gotten away, but they will not be able to interfere in the Lord’s game,” he said.

“What game?” Nameless demanded, but the shadows just laughed, grabbing them and dragging them away from the door. They had no choice but to go, hoping and praying that the other three were all right as the Velvet Room began to warp around them.

***

 **“There is too much interference for a fair game,”** the false Igor said. **“You and your attendants play too much of a part. As well as those who visit this place frequently. I will put a stop to that.”**

Igor just stared at him, unimpressed. “How do you believe that you will accomplish such a thing?” he asked.

 **“There is already a form here that I can use.”** The copy made a sweeping gesture, and the Master of the Velvet Room looked shocked as the room began to change. The lounge expanded, walls bowing out to make a circular room instead, and as Igor watched, identical cells began to form around the edges, creating an eerily blue panopticon. It was their unawakened guest’s room, its form used to override the Velvet Room’s usual shape.

He hadn’t been anticipating that this false god was strong enough to change the Velvet Room like this. Humanity was truly terrifying when they focused.

From an inside pocket of his coat, he drew five tarot cards, gesturing to allow them to hover before him. If the Room became a prison, his attendants would never be able to get out, and no help would be forthcoming. He struck all the cards at once, silently thanking the memory of that group, and cast the spell.

_“Grand Cross!”_

The copy staggered from the hit, but didn’t go down. Instead, he just looked angry, beginning to hover with a wicked aura around him. **“You are powerful, but you are not enough alone, no matter how strong a fusion you are capable of casting.”** Rays of red and black flowed between his hands, growing brighter and brighter before shooting forward and striking Igor, driving him back. **“You cannot stand against the will of the masses.”**

Igor could feel the copy’s power, the strength of a false god shutting him away in a prison of cognition, and he knew that for now, they were overwhelmed. The false god was unfortunately correct; no attendant of the Velvet Room could overcome the will of humanity. But before he could be imprisoned entirely, he reached for the Sea, where he could still sense it beyond the forming prison walls. Gathering what Hope he could, he focused. He didn’t know if any of his attendants had gotten away, or if they were trapped as he was, but someone would have to exist to aid their guests in the future.

 _Help the Trickster,_ he imbued into the forming creation. _Guide him, teach him, be a companion and friend. The answers you will seek will lie in the depths of Mementos…_

And with that last bit of defiance, the doors of the prison were closed.

***

When the archangels dragged Belladonna, Nameless, and Lavenza into the central room of the newly-created prison, all three knew immediately that the man standing there was not their master. There was a sinister edge to him, despite being otherwise identical in appearance.

“Who are you?” Belladonna asked, and the doppelganger’s smile widened.

 **“I am the God of Control willed into being by the masses, Yaldabaoth.”** He looked them over, and said, obviously pleased, **“You will serve me well in playing out this game without Igor’s undue influence.”**

“Doesn’t that mean you’re just playing the game with your influence instead? That’s not fair!” Lavenza cried. “Bring our master back!”

Yaldabaoth stared down at her, then looked to the archangels. **“This one will be quite troublesome. I have granted you the appropriate powers. You know what you must do.”**

“We hear and obey the word of the Lord.” Raphael and Gabriel seized Lavenza under her arms and began carrying her away, and she thrashed, panicking. 

“No, no, put me down! Let me go!” But she was too small to break away from them, and as they disappeared from view Belladonna demanded, “What are you going to do to her?!”

 **“You are all but entities born from the collective unconsciousness. It will cause her no harm to be split in two, to obscure her memories of all but knowing that I am her master now,”** Yaldabaoth intoned, ignoring their shocked and horrified expressions. **“And the two of you shall continue your purpose. The Velvet Room’s atmosphere must remain intact, no matter the form it takes. Is that not so?”**

“You want us to continue providing our music,” Nameless said quietly. “I have watched many guests come and go in many rooms, but this is no longer our Velvet Room. We will not perform for you.”

Somewhere in the distance, they heard Lavenza scream, and Yaldabaoth chuckled. **“Only one attendant is truly required, correct? I would be more inclined to keep both, if you were to cooperate.”**

And what were they supposed to do? Lavenza, torn into two amnesiac halves… If one half were to be killed, there would be no hope of ever restoring her to her original form. Belladonna squeezed Nameless’s hand, knowing that, at least temporarily, they had been beaten. 

“...Very well.”

**“Good. Now, there will be one other thing that I require of you…”**

***

Minato had been taking a very nice nap when something dragged him unceremoniously back to consciousness. He stared up at the ceiling, blinking in confusion. Ryoji and Ken, as far as he knew, were upstairs, shut into the game room with the newest and shiniest racing game, determinedly attempting to ruin their friendship with one too many attack items. There was no way he could have heard them from one floor down, on the other side of the dorm, through two closed doors. So what had woken him up?

He sat up, trying to focus, and realized that there was an increasingly agitated sound of voices from somewhere downstairs. And as he climbed out of bed to go investigate, there was a scream, a loud banging, and a crash. That spurred him to move more quickly, hurrying down the stairs to figure out what was going on.

Elizabeth, Margaret, and Theodore were lying in the hallway, Elizabeth on top of the other two, like they’d launched out of the door and ended up in a heap. The door itself was standing open, but the doorway was blocked; another door made of steel, with no handle or knob, barred the way. It looked like the sort of door you would find in a prison, to keep something from escaping. Minato gaped at the pile of blue on the hallway floor, trying to reconcile what, exactly, he was seeing. Because if he wasn’t hallucinating, it might have been something more frightening than the world potentially ending for a fifth or sixth time.

Elizabeth was crying.

Distantly he realized that he hadn’t even been sure if they were capable of crying. The rulers of power, as human as they appeared and acted at times, weren’t. But Elizabeth, normally all fire and vigor, was lying on the floor, hands over her face and weeping like the world was ending. Which he really hoped it wasn’t, because he wasn’t prepared for that.

Margaret and Theodore sat up, Theodore with tear-filled eyes as well and Margaret just looking shell-shocked, and Minato tentatively took a step closer.

“Guys?”

“Minato-san…” Theodore said, his voice wobbling. “W-We’re sorry for intruding like this…”

“Theo, don’t apologize, just...tell me what happened. Who screamed?” Minato asked, feeling himself grow more and more anxious as neither Elizabeth nor Margaret seemed to react to his voice.

Theodore swallowed hard. “Elizabeth screamed and attempted to punch through the door with her bare hands. We pulled her off of it and fell over.” It honestly seemed like a very Elizabeth thing to do, if not for the fact that the door in question was the seemingly-barricaded Velvet Room. Theodore shook his head frantically. “There were so many shadows, and then we escaped through the door, and it was only closed for a few moments but when we reopened it we found only this. We can’t get back into the Velvet Room!”

“There were shadows _in_ the Velvet Room?” Minato’s mouth fell open. “What about the others? Where are they?”

Margaret buried her face in her hands. “We left them… _I_ left them!”

Minato bit his lip and took a deep breath. “Okay, uh… Let’s… Let’s get all of you into the living room. We’re going to sit, and you’re all going to start from the beginning.” He offered Elizabeth a hand and she took it, tears still trailing down her face. As he helped her to her feet, he reached in his pocket and grabbed his phone, texting Ryoji with one hand. He and Ken needed to get down here for this. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

***

It took a while to piece everything together from three different overwrought explanations, but when everything finally sunk in, it left the three human persona-users stunned.

“Shadows have overrun the Velvet Room, it’s apparently gone into lockdown so we can’t get inside, and the last you saw Lavenza, Lady Belladonna, and Nameless, they were surrounded,” Minato summarized hollowly. “And none of you know what happened to Igor.”

They all nodded solemnly. Minato glanced at Ryoji and Ken, who looked equally as overwhelmed as he felt, and got up, his hands glowing faintly. “I’ll get through that door.”

“You are _not_ using freidyne _in the dorm_ ,” Ryoji said immediately, grabbing his wrist and making him sit again. “I know you’re worried; we all are. But hold up a second.”

“Isn’t there more than one door?” Ken asked.

Ryoji brightened. “There we go! We need to see if all the doors are like that, or just this one.” He pulled out his phone, sending a group text to Yu and Hamuko, and then set it beside him. “Meanwhile… If we can’t get into the Velvet Room, can we get into the Sea? Maybe there’s another way around.”

Margaret sighed. “The Velvet Room serves as a waypoint between reality and the collective unconsciousness. We would have to pass through it to reach any part of the Sea. The time that you two stumbled into the Sea by accident was exactly that: a fluke of destabilization caused by your arcana.”

“Hm…” Ryoji considered. “I guess the last thing to try is whether or not you could open a new door. Maybe only the existing doors are locked down.”

“Allow me.” Theodore got up, walking over to the living room wall and gesturing. The blue door outlined itself, fading into being next to the TV table, and everyone held their breath as Theodore reached for the knob. But when he opened it, the steel prison door was revealed behind it, and Elizabeth let out a despairing noise.

Ryoji’s phone buzzed, and he picked it up and read the messages quickly. “Yu-kun wants to know what’s up with the weird metal door.”

“Ask him if Marie can open a TV for us,” Minato replied, and the phone buzzed again.

“Hamu-chan wants to know ‘what the fuck happened to the Velvet Room’.” Despite the serious situation, Ryoji had to bite back a smile.

Minato swallowed hard. “Tell them both, video chat, tonight at 8. We’ll explain then. Easier than typing it all out.” He got up, stuffing his hands in his pockets awkwardly. “I’m going to go start dinner, since I’m cooking for seven, now.” He was halfway out of the room before any of them really realized he was moving, and Ryoji put his phone away before glancing at Ken.

“Ken-kun, can you be the best and take these guys up and let them pick rooms? I get the feeling they’re gonna be here at least overnight. I’m gonna grab Minato before he tries to nuke the door while no one’s looking.”

Ken nodded. He hadn't spent a lot of time around the Velvet siblings, but they were nice enough, and with a little bit of coaxing he got them to follow him towards the stairs. Ryoji watched them for a second to make sure they were going, then went after Minato.

He found the Universe in the kitchen, where he’d started aggressively chopping vegetables with the air of someone just barely not fraying to pieces. “Minato…”

“I’m fine,” Minato said, with a particularly pointed chop of the knife.

“You’re not fine. You can’t lie to me.” Ryoji’s hands settled over his, taking the knife and setting it aside. “Dearest, I know you, and you sound like you’re trying not to fall apart.”

Minato’s fists clenched involuntarily. “They’re my family, Ryoji. And half of them are on the other side of that door, possibly hurt or worse. I know they’re powerful, but Lady Belladonna and Nameless aren’t fighters, not to the caliber of the others, at least. And Lavenza’s so young…” He sagged as Ryoji wrapped his arms around him, turning enough to lean into Ryoji’s chest. “...I’m afraid.”

“Me too,” Ryoji admitted, squeezing him. “They’re the only family I’ve ever had. Of course I’m scared. But they’re already panicked. We’ve got to try to keep it together, just for a little longer, so we can figure out what to do.”

“I’ll try…” Minato buried his face in the crook of his boyfriend’s neck, trying to rein in his worry. All of the attendants were strong. Igor could probably take anyone out in one hit if he tried. They were all going to be fine.

They had to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *writing* “How do I justify “Trickster” existing as a title that’s never been used before but is implied to already be a thing?”  
> Igor: “Buckle the fuck up and let’s pull a thread.”  
> Me: *desperately grabbing for my arc-welding blowtorch*
> 
> I had to write Igor for longer than a few lines of dialogue. God help me. 
> 
> So. The last line of the fic summary finally kicks in. Uh, yeah. This is how we’re doing this. Surprise? ^_^;;;;; I’ve never been anxious about posting a chapter before, but I’m legitimately holding my breath here because this is like a Big Thing that has been planned for AGES and now it’s here and I’m just sort of freaking out because I hope that I got it out of my head and into words properly. Just take it; I’m gonna go sit in a corner.
> 
> (Side note: if Lavenza gets a DSN outfit (which she SHOULD), she needs a pair of Magnet headphones. Especially if they do a Miku cameo again. They’d suit her perfectly.)


	11. March 24th, 2014

When Ryoji woke up the next morning, Minato wasn’t in bed beside him.

That was...worrying, considering that Minato normally was in bed as long as he could get away with, and Ryoji got up and got dressed as quickly as possible before going out to look for him.

He didn’t have to look far, though, because he found both Minato and Elizabeth sitting against the wall in the hallway across from the Velvet Room door. The blue door was open, and the steel door was covered in scorch marks.

“Minato, Liz… Did either of you sleep?” he asked, crouching down in front of them.

Minato nodded sluggishly. “I woke up early and couldn’t fall back asleep. Found Elizabeth out here.”

“Minato-san and I tried to get through the door, but agilao did nothing at all, and we agreed that agidyne was not suitable for indoors,” Elizabeth added, her eyes dim with melancholy.

Ryoji sighed, reaching for their hands. “Up you get. Go doze on the couch; I’ll start breakfast.” He pulled them to their feet and nudged them down the hall, then headed into the kitchen to start the coffeemaker.

Halfway through making breakfast, Margaret, Theodore, and Ken had staggered downstairs to the living room as well, and there was a knock on the front door that revealed itself to be Yu, with Marie and Nanako in tow. Yu had apparently left Inaba first thing that morning, packing Marie and Nanako into the car and setting off. He hadn’t been _planning_ to bring his cousin, but Nanako overheard him and Marie talking about it, and she had insisted on coming too. Ryoji was just silently thankful he’d decided to make a large breakfast.

The video chat the night before had turned into a full-blown video conference between the dorm residents, the Shadow Operatives’ headquarters, and the Investigation Team back in Inaba. Rise and Naoto had been in Tokyo for work and had managed to get to headquarters as well, so almost everyone was up to date on everything they knew about the situation. Mitsuru had promised to get hold of Naoya and the rest of the adult reserve members, but there wasn’t a lot to tell. No one had any ideas of how to get through the door, and despite Minato’s agitation, they weren’t sure that attacking it would do anything at all.

“Armageddon destroys anything, though,” Minato protested, but weakly.

“You can’t set that off in the real world, Minato-senpai,” Yu said bluntly. “You’ll take out half the block with it.”

“Then we put a door in a deserted area--”

But before Minato could continue with his explanation of why bombing the metaphysical prison door was a good idea, the front door of the dorm flew open to admit a blur that flew right for them. It resolved into Hamuko when she crashed into Theodore, throwing her arms around him. “Oh my god, Theo!”

Theodore, looking remarkably like a startled deer, somehow managed to hug her back. “It’s okay, Hamuko-chan. We’re fine.”

Mitsuru had followed Hamuko in at a more reasonable speed, and found a seat next to Ryoji in the surprisingly-full room. “Fine or not, this is still a situation that needs addressing. If we’ve lost access to meta-space, it’s only reasonable to assume that some sort of catastrophe is on the brink of descending.”

“Has anyone suggested using Armageddon on the door?” Hamuko asked, scooting off of Theodore to sit beside him, and Yu pressed a hand to his face in exasperation. They really were twins, weren’t they?

Nanako looked around at all of them from her place beside Marie, the two of them squeezed into a single oversized armchair. “Why can’t Marie-neechan just help you all go in the TV?”

“Not that simple, kiddo,” Marie said lightly, patting her on the head. “I can open a connection to Teddie’s world, which is just an ‘island’ in the Sea, but you can’t get to the Sea itself from there. I’m not powerful enough for that.” She pouted. “I’ve never been more annoyed by the ‘minor’ part of being a minor land goddess.”

Mitsuru folded her arms. “There just isn’t enough information to work from,” she said. “Do you three have any idea what could have caused this? What would be dangerous enough to lock down the bridge between the real world and meta-space?”

Elizabeth explained briefly what she’d observed in the subway, which wasn’t much. “Our master said that a Trickster would awaken to avert the ruin that was approaching, but we don’t know how soon that will be. Our home might be cut off until that happens,” she said sadly.

“They’d try to contact us, right? Even if it wasn’t safe enough to go back there…” Yu said. “They wouldn’t just leave us here, not knowing.”

“I would hope so.” Margaret shook her head. “But if something happened to them…”

“Ah, ah, no, stop that!” Ryoji objected. “Hamu-chan, cover her mouth, we’re not doing ifs, or you three and Minato are going to bring the dorm down on us with all the rain clouds you’ll spawn.”

Mitsuru nodded. “Mochizuki is right. We can’t get wrapped up in speculation. Did using fire magic on the door actually accomplish anything?”

“Didn’t even heat it up,” Minato muttered.

“Then I cannot condone using Armageddon on it. It’s obviously not going to behave the same way as a real door would.”

“Mitsuru-senpai--”

“You wanted me to be the leader, so I am giving you an order. Do _not_ use Armageddon in normal space.”

Minato groaned, and Ryoji leaned over to wrap an arm around him comfortingly. “So this is another instance where we just have to sit and see what happens?”

Mitsuru sighed. “We don’t have any particular means to investigate, so it would appear so.” She looked around at them all appraisingly. “We need to formulate a plan for in the meantime, since we could be dealing with this role-reversal for an unforeseen amount of time. I never imagined that we would have them as guests, instead of them welcoming one of us.”

The Velvet siblings looked at each other, having not thought of it like that before. “Oh… We are your guests now, aren’t we?” Theodore said wonderingly.

Minato shrugged. “Obviously they can stay here; we have plenty of room. I don’t mind cooking for more people. As long as Ken-kun and Ryoji don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Ken said. “It’ll be nice to have more people in the dorm again.” Ryoji nodded in agreement, and from his place at Ken’s feet Koromaru barked affirmatively.

Hamuko tilted her head, looking at Theodore on one side of her and Margaret on the other. “Uh… They’re going to need real clothes, then, if they might be here for longer than a few days. People are going to stare at them if they go out in their attendant outfits.” She grinned, suddenly. “Mitsuru-senpai! Shopping trip!”

“I suppose that’s a fair point,” Mitsuru acknowledged. “Having regular clothes would help avoid undue attention, because right now they do look a bit...otherworldly.”

“Exactly!” Hamuko said brightly. “We should all go; they’re going to need a whole new wardrobe!” She hopped to her feet. “Come on, let’s go!”

Minato, Ryoji, and Theodore exchanged a glance, knowing that she was just trying to distract herself from how worried she was. But none of them said anything about it, and Ryoji said easily, “Sure, why not? We can at least try to tone them down a little first, though.”

After a few minutes of debate, they had gotten Theodore to leave his jacket, gloves, and hat. Margaret, there wasn’t much they could do since she didn’t wear accessories like her siblings. And Minato talked Elizabeth into taking off her hat and gloves as well. He just looked at her for a moment afterwards, then down at her hands.

“...I’ve never seen you without gloves,” he said. Even that time they’d gone to the summer festival and she’d worn that pink sundress, she’d still been wearing a pair of Theodore’s white gloves and a matching hat. It was strange how different the absence of those accessories made her look. Maybe it was because he associated the complete outfit with meta-space, but somehow wearing less of it made her look more human, oddly enough.

The others were heading for the door, already chatting about what kind of clothes would suit the three Velvet residents. Elizabeth’s golden eyes met his as he looked back up, and she leaned close.

“...we’re still going to try using Armageddon on the door, yes?”

Minato smiled. “As soon as things calm down.”

“Minato! Elizabeth! Come on!”

Elizabeth smiled back at him, and together they hurried to catch up to the others.

***

It was a surprisingly productive day of shopping, considering the anxiety lurking under the surface of many of the participants. They all got lunch at Wild Duck Burger, and had a good time combing through the racks at the department store. Elizabeth discovered a remarkable affinity for abstractly patterned shirts, Margaret favored smart-looking skirts and more fitted outfits, and Theodore, after much consideration, realized that his favorite color was a shade of teal-green. Nanako had helped him go through piles of colored t-shirts until he made a decision, and had been surprised when it wasn’t blue.

Mitsuru had paid for all of it. They didn’t have any money, and she waved off Margaret’s attempts to protest by reminding her that those who lived in the Velvet Room had saved their lives more than once. She also pulled Minato aside, promising him a bonus in his ‘official’ Shadow Operatives paycheck to help cover any extra groceries.

(Margaret pulled him aside after that, promising to return every yen after they regained access to the Velvet Room and could get at their savings from all that compendium summoning.)

Everyone was staying the night, mostly planning to depart the following day, but even after their long day out Minato still couldn’t fall asleep. Ryoji, fortunately, slept like his arcana, and didn’t even stir when Minato slipped out of bed and went to sit in the hallway across from the Velvet door again. He just couldn’t believe that Igor would shut the room down and not even try to contact them. That didn’t seem like him at all. Even if his hints were cryptic at times, they were always forthcoming.

A footstep on the stairs made him look up, and Theodore smiled sheepishly, coming over to look down at him. “I didn’t realize anyone else would be awake. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Is everything okay?” Minato asked.

Theodore nodded. “I was just getting a glass of water. We have...never been out of the Velvet Room for longer than a few hours at a time. Apparently being in reality means that we grow tired and hungry and thirsty like humans do.”

“That must be weird,” Minato said, tipping his head back against the wall.

“A little, yes. But I think it will be interesting, and help us be able to understand our guests better. Plus, Nanako-chan informed me that your cooking is the best possible cooking we could experience. Even better than her big brother’s.” Theodore disappeared into the kitchen for a minute, then returned with two glasses and sat beside Minato, putting one down within his reach.

Minato picked it up and took a sip. “Thanks… And don’t let Yu-kun hear you say that. Nanako-chan is a flatterer who’s probably hoping I’ll make her homemade ice cream before they leave.” Bufu was an extremely useful spell, for _all_ sorts of reasons.

They stared at the door in silence for what felt like ages, and then Minato asked quietly, “He knows that we would help him, with anything, right?”

Theodore nodded. “I’m sure. But...our master is strange. He is in a position where he is obliged to remain as neutral as possible with his aid, but he does care. That’s why he allows us to step in when we do, why he looks the other way and passes us off as disobedient and punishes us, but is never actually angry about what actions we take. I was not allowed out of the Velvet Room after everything that happened with Hamuko-chan; he was angry, but not about the fact that I saved her. More the fact that it was a much bigger risk than usual.” He looked at the floor. “All of us have been warned since we were young not to overbalance the game, or it will cause trouble for the master of our master. I could have tipped things too far, acting as recklessly as I did.”

“You guys have mentioned him before,” Minato said. “Igor’s master. Why is he never around? I haven’t asked what he’s like because it’s seemed like an awkward topic, but he was around in the past, right?”

“Lady Belladonna and Nameless have said that Master Philemon used to be much more involved,” Theodore said quietly. “Now he sits in a stalemate with… with the Crawling Chaos. So long as he remains uninvolved, so too does his opposite.”

“So he hasn’t intervened directly since what happened in Sumaru?”

Theodore smiled awkwardly. “He trusts our master, and by extension us, to handle things in his place.”

Minato considered all of that, and then said, “So basically, we shouldn’t expect any help from Philemon.”

“I would assume not.” Theodore sighed. Then, quieter, so quiet that Minato wasn’t actually sure if he was meant to hear it, Theodore added, “I don’t know if you would want his help…”

For some reason, that didn’t sound wrong. Minato wasn’t sure why, but it might have had something to do with the idea that a godlike being had given impossible power to a sixteen-year-old and expected him to make a miracle or die. Or maybe die either way, considering what Minato knew of his original fate.

They sat there for a long time, sipping at their water and drifting in and out of a doze. But both of them snapped awake when the blue door swung open, revealing a doorway blocked by only glowing blue bars. And standing on the other side of those bars was Belladonna.

Both young men shot to their feet. “Lady Belladonna!”

She held a finger to her lips. “Shh. Don’t yell.” She smiled, her gaze sad and fond. Behind her, they could see nothing but a swirling blackness preventing them from looking into the hallway. “Before you ask, we are fine. Nameless and I are safe. Our master is safe. Lavenza is...safe.” Neither of them noticed her hesitation, too invested in the words themselves. “But we cannot allow you back in at this point.”

“Please, why?” Theodore asked. “Are the shadows gone? Or are you still under attack?”

Belladonna reached through the bars, pressing her hand to his cheek. “The shadows have gone, but things are not stable. If we lift the doors now...we risk being overrun.” She reached with her other hand to touch Minato’s face. “Our master, more than anything, would want you all to be safe. So we have to ask you to remain in reality for now. I know it will be hard, but you can endure it.”

“I could help, though,” Minato said, his own hand coming up to cover hers. “Lady Belladonna, please, I’m powerful enough.”

“Minato-san, we love you as much as we love any of the other residents of this place. Please do not think we are abandoning you,” Belladonna said warmly. “But this is something different than anything that has been faced before, and we need to wait for the Trickster to awaken, however long that may take. Please, trust me.”

“Of course I trust you. Of course I trust you, you’re my--” But Minato cut himself off, just leaning into her hand. “If you say that we can’t come in yet, I believe you. We can wait for this ‘Trickster’. I’ll make sure Margaret and Elizabeth are okay.”

“I have complete faith in you,” Belladonna said, and stepped back from the bars. “Please, have faith in us in return.” Before Minato and Theodore could react, the steel prison door rematerialized, and they were left staring at the metal with a strange mix of reassurance and anxiety.

“I guess we just have to wait, Theo,” Minato said quietly.

Theodore nodded. “I don’t know what our master could be planning, but I have no doubts that he would want both us and his prior guests to be out of danger.”

Minato bowed his head. “I trust Igor. And I trust Belladonna, and everyone. I’m glad that they’re safe. But…” His eyes flashed gold. “If we’re waiting for too long, I will find a way through that door, Trickster or no Trickster.”

Theodore smiled, and there was a determined edge to it. “Believe me, Minato-san, when I say that the three of us will be behind you, with whatever meagre strength we can offer like this.”

The reassurance of knowing that the rest of their family was alive was enough to actually allow them to relax, and after agreeing to explain everything to the rest of their friends in the morning, they parted ways to go to bed. Ryoji didn’t stir when Minato climbed back into bed beside him, and the Universe sighed. He still wasn’t completely happy with the situation, but their family was safe.

For now, that was all that mattered.

***

**“You lie to them well.”**

Belladonna glared at the interloper, still mockingly in the guise of their master. “You threatened not only them, but Lavenza. I did what I had to.”

 **“Indeed. And with your actions, you have kept Caroline and Justine from an unpleasant fate.”** Yaldabaoth stood with arms folded, appraising her. **“But I reiterate what I said. If any of your former guests or attendants set foot in this Velvet Room, they will be executed. I will brook no interference in this game.”**

“They won’t. They trust me.” And oh, how she hated to have taken advantage of that trust. But lying to keep them from harm was the only choice that she had. This false god was strong enough to have imprisoned their master and taken over the Velvet Room. The Room was in no shape to be a battleground; the advantage would not be with anyone coming from the outside, and she wasn’t going to risk Yaldabaoth being powerful enough to kill Minato, or Naoya, or any of them. Not until she could get a better idea of what it was and how it operated, and find a way to get them some sort of information that would help them win.

And it wasn’t all a lie. Their master indeed would want all of them to be as safe as possible, not charge in unawares.

Yaldabaoth looked to the archangels standing at her sides, then turned away. 

**“Return her to her room. We have an awakening to prepare for.”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minato’s unshakable faith in his family is his downfall. At least for now. Although there's only so much you can do when everything you need to investigate is on a different, unreachable plane of reality.
> 
> (Minato has never met Philemon. He’s only heard the residents and the adults talk about him indirectly. And no one mentions Nyar, especially by name, if they can help it.)
> 
> There's some particular bits of headcanon here.
> 
> Now I kind of want to try to draw the Velvet kids in normal clothes.


	12. April 11th, 2014

Goro only needed to last less than two more months. Then he’d be fifteen, he could legally age out of the foster system, and he’d never have to put up with the _stupid_ people in the children’s home ever again. He’d be on the streets, but honestly that was looking preferable to staying.

No one was going to adopt him now. He was too old. He was stuck, sharing a room with a brat until he could figure out how to find somewhere of his own, but no business wanted to hire a scruffy-looking orphan who’d just started high school for a part-time job. It was like being trapped in a prison, and everywhere he turned he found another locked door.

He still clung to that dim hope, though, that his father would be some kind of salvation. Even if it was growing harder and harder to imagine how he was going to get near Shido. The man’s popularity had only risen in the past year and a half. Whenever he spoke in public, he drew huge crowds. There were rumors he was going to campaign for prime minister one day.

And then, he got lucky.

He was in Shibuya, looking through the job magazines and trying to avoid going ‘home’ for a little longer, when he heard the familiar voice in the station square. He shoved the magazine he was holding back into the rack, hurrying down Center Street until he spotted the man giving a speech near the bookstore at the end of the road. Shido Masayoshi was _right there_ , apparently just finishing up, because the crowd applauded raucously when he stopped talking. It seemed to have been an unplanned thing, because the crowd was much smaller than usual.

Goro ignored the press of bodies as best he could, weaving unnoticed through the people as Shido left his place and headed for a car parked off to the side. He ducked under a woman’s arm, darting around a cluster of college kids talking among themselves and walking as quickly as he could towards the politician. “S-Shido-san? May I...have a moment?” he called.

Shido and his black-suited bodyguards turned to look, and Goro’s heart jolted as his father looked at him for the first time. But instead of curiosity, or concern, or sudden realization, there was nothing but disdain in Shido’s expression.

“I don’t have time to listen to some brat,” he said, turning away again. “I have an important meeting that I am already running late for.” He got in the car without another word, and one of the bodyguards made a shooing motion at Goro.

“Move it, kid. Shido-san is an important politician. He doesn’t have time for you.”

Goro took a few steps back, then hurriedly walked away before they could see his expression waver.

“W-What?” It had all happened so fast. He pulled out his phone, a hand-me-down from a secondhand store that he’d been lucky still worked, and looked at his reflection in the screen. He didn’t look neat or put-together, but surely someone like Shido, who spoke on TV all the time about leading Japan towards a better future for the sake of the next generation, was supposed to care about someone from that generation.

“He’s...tired. Yes, tired. He’s a busy man; he surely is weary of people bothering him…” Speed-walking across the station square, he tried to rationalize what had happened. “And a single orphan isn’t important…” He didn’t notice his phone, still clutched in one hand, light up. An icon with a red-and-black eye appeared on the home screen, then expanded. “A man that left my mother with nothing but memories and mementos, though…” Had he been wrong, to think that Shido would care about a single child? Maybe if he knew that Goro was his son, and not just a random person approaching him on the street…

“I need to know more about what he’s like in private…” His phone said something he didn’t quite catch, and he shoved it back into his bag, alongside his few belongings that he carried with him so that no one would steal them while he was away from the children’s home. He didn’t have much. A photo of his mother, a plastic Featherman figure he’d found abandoned by the side of the road when he was younger, the book he was currently reading. And the only Christmas present he’d ever received, a plastic lightsaber in the heroes’ shade of blue that he’d been given one year after the orphanage marathoned the six Star Battles movies. 

He stared at the ground, lost in thought, as his feet carried him down into the subway as usual and he fished in his pocket for the few yen to pay the fare to get home.

Eerie silence was all that met him, though, and when Goro looked up he realized that something wasn’t right. There was no one else in the station, and everything was dim and ominous, a feeling of foreboding pressing down on him. His eyes widened in confusion and he looked around frantically, but there was no indication of how he had gotten here instead of the normal train station. And there didn’t appear to be any way back, either. The stairs to the surface were gone, leaving only a door that wouldn’t open no matter how much he pulled on it.

Checking his phone confirmed for him that there was no cell signal, and thus no way to call for help, either. “What… What is this…?” There was no way to go but forward, and he tentatively passed through the ticket gate, walking down the broken escalator to what looked like a platform. It was obvious that no trains ran on these tracks, since they twisted into the darkness beyond with no apparent rhyme or reason, and Goro stopped on the edge and debated with himself. It could be dangerous to go farther; deserted as this subway appeared, there could be anything lurking in those tunnels. But if there was no way back, he wasn’t going to find a way out unless he kept exploring. So he carefully hopped off the platform, setting off tentatively into the dark.

***

For a while, he found nothing. The tunnels seemed endless, twisting and turning back on themselves, and he was almost certain he was going in circles. But eventually, he finally spotted another person standing in a dead-end, and as he got closer he realized he recognized him.

It was the man who worked the information desk beside the ticket machines. Goro saw him often enough, going back and forth between school and the children’s home, and he ran up to him without thinking. 

“Please,” he said, anxiety bleeding into his voice, “can you help me? I don’t know what’s happening; what is this place?”

The man looked at him, a condescending expression on his face, and Goro took a step back. His eyes were glowing an unnatural golden color. _“Help? Everyone wants help, day in, day out. People are so stupid; how hard is it to read a subway map?”_ There was a viciousness in his voice that Goro had never heard before, and he stumbled away from that terrifying yellow gaze, not sure what was happening but knowing that whatever this was, it wasn’t the desk attendant he knew. He picked a tunnel at random, hurrying away from what seemed like a monster in human skin, only to skid to a halt barely a minute later at the sight of a real monster.

The hulking, shadowy beast turned to find the source of the clattering footsteps, and when it saw Goro it sprinted right at him, charging into him and knocking him against the wall before bursting into five distinct shapes and surrounding him. They looked like young women, with delicate wings, and Goro had just enough time to process the fact that he was being attacked by some sort of _fairies_ before one giggled at him.

“Aw, what’s a cute human doing down here?”

“Lost little thing~” another cooed. “He’s wandered somewhere he shouldn’t~”

“He needs to learn better, doesn’t he?”

Goro’s eyes widened as one of them raised a hand, and suddenly a _bolt of lightning_ crashed down on him, making every nerve in his body tingle with pain. He gasped as his knees gave out, landing hard on the dirty floor of the subway, his eyes watering as his muscles spasmed in protest. “Wh-Wh--?” He couldn’t even get the question out, shaking, and another one of the monsters giggled before another bolt struck him and he screamed.

He was going to die down here, confused and alone and trapped among monsters. Which wasn’t surprising, to the detached part of his mind that was still thinking, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite so literal.

And then everything seemed to slow down, and he heard the voice.

_Will you truly let yourself fall here, broken down and robbed of your rightful place? Is this the extent of your justice?_

Goro choked on a breath, hands flying up to clutch at his head as his heart pounded painfully. “I--!”

_Your dreams remain, do they not? To take power from criminals who make others suffer, to aid the powerless with nowhere to turn. To become something in this world that has cast you aside! Will you let those come to an end?_

“No, no, I--” He couldn’t give in. He _wouldn’t_. All the world had ever wanted was for him to lay down and die, and he refused. He refused to die without making his father _see_ him, without making some kind of mark! “I won’t go down without a fight!”

_Your will is strong, your kingdom will be great. I am thou, thou art I. Stand up, princeling! We shall forge a contract and take back back our power from those that have wronged us. Let no one bring you to your knees ever again!_

He staggered to his feet, clawing at his own face. Something was there, something over his skin, attached. A mask? He could just barely see the red point of a bird’s beak through the eyeholes. The fairy monsters had moved back. He hadn’t known that monsters could look confused. 

Goro’s fingers found the edge of the red fabric, and without hesitation he tore it off, screaming as his face burned with pain. Blue fire blazed from the wound the mask left behind, washing over him, burning away what he had been and leaving something new in its place.

_You know what to do. Go!_

“Robin Hood!” Goro called, and the shining figure materialized behind him, bearing an elaborate bow. He took just a second to stare in wonder, before turning back to the monsters, the spell leaping to his lips as if he’d always known it. _“Maeiha!”_

Robin Hood gestured, and dark magic spiraled down to strike the monsters, causing them to shriek and fall to the ground. As they struggled to get up, Goro lunged for the bag he’d dropped, pulling out the plastic lightsaber. He knew it wouldn’t do much, but he felt better having something like a weapon in his hand.

But as he gave a sharp flick of his wrist to extend the plastic blade, a real laser blazed from the handle, and Goro’s eyes widened. He swung it back and forth a few times, and it made the faint humming sound he knew so well. A smile spread slowly across his face, and he turned on the strange fairies with fire in his eyes.

In the end, three got away, barely evading his blade as he attacked. But the other two burst into motes of darkness and dissolved, leaving behind a few coins. Goro went over to look, picking up the few hundred yen lying there. It seemed real enough, and he reached to tuck it into a pocket before realizing what he was wearing.

A prince’s decorated jacket covered him, white and red with gold braid, over crisp white pants. The bird-shaped mask was back over his face, though he could still feel Robin in his mind. “I… What happened to my clothes?”

A low growl from farther down the passage forced him to abandon trying to figure it out, and he grabbed his bag and raced down the tunnels, heading for where he hoped the entrance was. There hadn’t been monsters on that first level, and he could take a moment to regroup.

When he made it back up the escalator, he pulled out his phone again. Still no signal, but he finally noticed the strange icon. When he tapped it, it brought up a prompt that simply said **_-Exit?-_** with a yes and no option. Tentatively, he tapped ‘yes’, and the world warped around him, wavering in red and black rings until it resolved itself into one of the side hallways of the Shibuya station. The lightsaber in his hands was plastic once again, and his clothes were back to normal. But the icon was still there, and he shoved the saber closed and back into his bag and tapped it curiously.

It seemed to be some sort of navigation app, with a menu of choices. There was only one line of the menu filled in.

**Name:** _N/A_ \- **Location:** _Tokyo Subway_ \- **Distortion:** _Mementos_

When he tapped that line, it opened a sub-menu, also with only the top line filled in. That one said ‘Path of Qimranut’.

“Mementos…” Goro murmured, and closed the app. He’d said that, hadn’t he? If it had some sort of vocal input option, it might have caught the word, and sent him to that strange place. The distorted subway.

There was a scrape on his arm from being thrown to the ground when the monster charged him. It stung when he ran a finger over it. The subway was _real_. Robin Hood was real. The monsters were real…

People were starting to look curiously at him just standing in the middle of the hall, and he hurried towards his ticket gate, avoiding eye contact with the man at the information desk on the way. He would go home, and think this over more when his heart wasn’t still racing from the fight. That would be best. Calm down, think rationally.

_Or,_ his traitorous mind supplied hopefully, thinking of all the fantasy and science-fiction he’d consumed when he wasn’t reading mysteries, _this is your call to adventure._

Goro didn’t dare to hope, and headed quickly towards home.

***

He’d fallen asleep early, worn-out from his battle in the subway, but it seemed like only moments before he awoke somewhere that was definitely _not_ his shared room in the children’s home.

He was curled up in the corner of a tiny room, with a flat pillow and a thin blanket. It was barely even a room, more of a stone cube with no visible details. He wasn’t sure he could stand up straight without hitting the ceiling if he bothered to get up. The only reason he could even see was a tiny crack in one wall, letting in the tiniest sliver of blue light. Distantly, he could hear some sort of music, but it was muffled and barely discernible above his own pounding heart. Two bizarre places in one day was too much. Where _was_ he? He didn’t even have his phone on him, and as he looked down at himself he realized he was dressed in ragged, beat-up clothes, even worse than his real ones.

**“Welcome.”** said a voice, deep and ancient, like a yawning void. It wasn’t the voice of Robin Hood, and Goro curled up tighter, willing it to go away. He didn’t know what was happening, but somehow being shut up in here at the mercy of whatever was talking was more terrifying than exploring the subway. But the voice persisted. **“This room has never seen a guest quite like this before. Your heart is closed to others in a way that is entirely unexpected.”**

Goro didn’t respond. What did this voice know?

**“This changes a few things, but not much. You have still been chosen to wield a very special power.”**

That got him to pay attention, like a magic word. A special power? _Chosen?_ Maybe this really was like one of the books he’d read. Maybe...he was going to be a hero.

**“This world has been distorted beyond repair. You have been gifted the power of persona, the inner mask that you use to face the world.”** The voice chuckled, and Goro shivered. **“This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter...as does Mementos. Use this power you have been granted to find your truth, and to enact your justice.”**

“Mementos is...between mind and matter?” Goro asked tentatively. He didn’t know if he was allowed to ask questions. It just sort of slipped out.

But the voice answered. **“Indeed. Now you will see what lurks in the hearts of humanity.”** Somewhere in the distance, a bell was ringing, and the voice chuckled. **“It is now time for you to return to your world. You will be a very intriguing guest…”**

He wasn’t even aware of falling back asleep. It just felt like he blinked, and then he was back in his room, staring at the clock across the room that read 11:36pm. His roommate was snoring, and Goro rolled over, facing the wall and trying to think. If the subway was real, and the navigation app was real, there was no way that that room and that voice hadn’t been real.

It had said he had been _chosen_. He’d been given that power, the power to call his persona, and told to pursue justice. It was like some kind of sign. He could still get near Shido and make him listen. He could still step up and be worth something. 

Today wasn’t the end. It was just the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to write one-half of an awakening that lives up to Arsène (or any of them, really) was...uhh... But timeline-wise, we are now two years from Akira’s journey beginning. :3 For now, we’re going to focus on Akechi, since the next two or three months are going to be a Big Deal in his narrative.
> 
> For the record, this doesn’t mean that I think Robin Hood is Akechi’s “true” persona or anything. This kid’s a gordian knot of complexities, and we’ll get there, I promise. But the rebellion that conjured Robin was clearly different from Loki, and at this point, he hasn’t fully grasped the hate necessary to unlock that part of his heart.
> 
> (On that note, I’d like an opinion. The PT’s ultimate personas reference mythological figures to replace the literary ones. But Goro begins with a literary and mythological persona. Hypothetically, would Goro’s ultimate persona (acting under the assumption that Loki doesn’t count) follow the pattern and be another myth-type, or would it be something angelic to fit the Justice arcana? I have an idea for both and I’m trying to work through them in my head to see which fits better, so any thoughts you guys have would be appreciated.)


	13. April 19th, 2014

It took a week and three more trips to Mementos for Goro to come up with a plan.

The voice had said that he would find what lurked in the heart of humanity, and it was _right_. It had taken a lot of observation, but Goro was a smart kid. Eventually he’d pieced together that the few people he encountered in the subway weren’t real; they were some sort of expression of people’s inner thoughts. That was why the information desk attendant had lashed out. It was what he really thought about all the people that bothered him with questions that could have been answered with two seconds of common sense.

And if he could find the things that real people were hiding about themselves, why not criminals?

He learned that people’s inner selves didn’t lash out at him if he didn’t make them mad. Most of the time they were happy to talk and spill things that they’d been hiding if they thought they had a sympathetic ear. So all he had to worry about was the monsters, and he was getting better at fighting them, too, with Robin Hood’s help. He’d taken some of the money that they left behind and bought a cheap plastic ray gun at a secondhand shop, gambling that it would work the same way as the sword. And it _did_. It fired bursts of plasma that damaged the shadow-monsters, much to his absolute joy.

Goro had a theory about that. If the subway was some sort of mental world, maybe his weapons worked because he thought they should. Or maybe because the _monsters_ thought they should. There was no way to tell, but the important part was that they worked, and he had another way to protect himself. He was learning slowly that some monsters were hurt more by some things than others. It was tough work to remember it all, but he managed.

Today, he was hunting. He’d checked the police station, and there was a reward being offered for a man called Nakahara Takeshi that had robbed three banks and gone into hiding. Police were certain he hadn’t left Tokyo, but they were having no luck figuring out where he might be, even though they knew his identity. And they had released his name to the public. So Goro had entered his name in the nav next to Mementos, and it had given him a tiny, blinking indicator three lines below the entrance.

It took less time to explore the maze this time. The floor seemed less twisted, and he found the platform with another escalator leading downwards quickly. The nav had labeled the new area as “Path of Qimranut - End” the last time he’d been here, and Goro had been faced with a closed door. No matter what he did, it wouldn’t open. But he’d come up with a plan, and today he put that into action.

There were no monsters in this small area, only the occasional train roaring past, journeying downward into the depths, and Goro sat down to watch for the next train, idly looking over the mental-people that milled around on the other side of the concrete barriers. When the next one barrelled past, Goro started counting as soon as it was out of sight, ticking off time second by second until another train followed. Two minutes. It was an absurdly short time between trains, but this place wasn’t real. More importantly, it wasn’t a lot of time to pull off his idea.

He could only assume there was another escalator behind that door, leading down to another floor. If he ran along the tracks, it would hopefully lead him downwards to a place where he could find his way back into the maze. But if there wasn’t a way back off the tracks, he was going to get hit by a train, and definitely wouldn’t survive the experience, persona or not. He counted between several more trains, getting roughly two minutes each time, give or take a few seconds, and pushed himself to his feet.

“I can do this,” he said, barely above a whisper, pointedly ignoring that his hands were shaking.

 _Great daring and swiftness of foot yield the greatest rewards,_ Robin Hood rumbled in his head.

Goro swallowed hard, and when the next train flew past, he leapt down behind it and took off at a run down the dark tunnel, one hand skimming the wall to ground him in the darkness as he counted down in his head.

Thirty seconds into his two minutes, his hand lost the wall, and he spent a precious few seconds learning that there was an alcove sunk into the wall of the tunnel. He got his bearings again and hurried onwards, finding another roughly the same distance away. There were no lights ahead of him, and a rumbling behind him that gradually grew louder and louder as the seconds passed, so when he passed the third alcove he wedged himself into it and squeezed his eyes shut, praying to god or demon or anyone to just please not let him die down here in the dark.

The train screamed past, inches away, and he cracked his eyes open for just a moment to watch the eerie red windows pass before pressing back as far as he could and holding his breath. In just another moment the train was gone, and he breathed out again, sagging against the stone behind him. He felt like every bit of him was shaking, with fear and adrenaline and a strange, anxious excitement. He’d _survived_. He could do this!

...he’d forgotten to count.

Goro took the time to catch his breath, tucked away in the alcove, and after the next train passed he swung himself out and took off running again. At least it was all downhill. Every minute and a half or so, he pressed himself into the nearest alcove, waiting for the train to pass before continuing on. It felt a lot farther than one escalator’s worth of distance downwards, but he persisted, and finally another platform came into view up ahead. He tossed himself up onto it gratefully, lying on his back and staring at the blue ceiling. That had been nerve-wracking, but also one of the most incredible things he’d ever done.

He pulled out the nav, checking his menu, and his eyes widened when it showed him many floors _below_ the target, in something called the “Path of Aiyatsbus - End”. There were six more floors above him before he’d get back to where he had been, and the blinking indicator was still on the top one.

If he’d just been able to get that door open…!

Aiyatsbus, however, didn’t seem to be much different than Qimranut, save for slightly more resilient monsters. Goro avoided them as much as possible, staying out of sight as best he could in the bluish tunnels and wondering if he could trade his white outfit for something that blended in a little better. He even found something like a rest area a few floors up, and could take a moment to collect himself. Eventually he made his way up to the first floor of the area, where he found the man he was looking for, with those strange golden eyes that meant he wasn’t a real person.

Goro sat down beside him, and he looked up. _“What do you want, kid?”_

“Nothing,” Goro said, offering a practiced, pleasant smile. “I’m hiding.”

 _“Hiding? In that outfit?”_ But Nakahara chuckled. _“Looks like we’ve got something in common. I’m hiding, too. What’re you hiding from?”_

“...my foster parents,” Goro said after a moment. The best lies were mostly truth, after all, even if that truth wasn’t present-day. “My foster father beats me. I’m afraid to go home, but if he finds me he’ll drag me back.”

 _“Jeeze, that’s rough, kid.”_ The man leaned in conspiratorially. _“A word of advice? The trick is fitting yourself into wherever you’re hiding, so you don’t stick out. Like me, for example. I’m hiding from some people that want to drag me away, too. But a former professor of mine posted online he was going out of town, so I’m hiding in his apartment, way out on the edge of the city. Cut my hair, told his neighbors I’m his great-nephew checking on the place while he’s gone. Worked like a charm so far! People mostly leave you alone if you just act like you belong.”_

Goro took a deep breath. The man seemed to think he was incredibly clever. But he’d given up the exact information that Goro needed. A former professor that he would have access to on social media, who was out of town. It was just enough of a clue to have something to go on. Now he just had to get the police to listen to him. But first, just a little more…

“A professor? I hope I can go to college one day...” he said. “You seem very smart; where did you go?” Flattery would get you everywhere. Or, he hoped it would, anyway.

 _“Heh. I went to Meiji University. For political science. But politics is a raw game lately, so don’t make my mistake. Study something else.”_ The man laughed self-deprecatingly, and Goro chuckled awkwardly.

“I’ll keep that in mind. And thank you for the advice. I will endeavor to find a better place to hide based on your example.” He lifted a hand in a thoughtless wave, walking away quickly. The longer he spoke to the man, the more chance that he would get suspicious and react poorly.

Already dreading the trip back down the tunnels, he stopped briefly at the door to see if there was a way to unlock it from this side. To his surprise, as soon as he touched it, it opened, and he stepped through back into Qimranut. But before he could even begin to think of a way to keep it open, it slid closed again, as impenetrable as before.

“Only one way, then…” he murmured. “All right. I suppose that, at least, is preferable to having to face the train tunnel both ways…”

The train tunnel had been an unbelievably stupid plan, but it had worked, so there was no point in worrying about it any further. He had a means around the door now, and that was all that mattered. All that was left was to put the next step of his plan into action.

***

He’d put on his school uniform, the nicest clothes he had, and gone to the police station. Of course, they hadn’t taken the fourteen-year-old that approached the desk seriously, but when he refused to leave they’d handed him off to some desk cop, sitting aside in someone’s office. They were clearly hoping he would just go away if they let him talk to someone. But Goro was prepared.

“Nakahara attended Meiji University,” he explained to the man. “I believe that if you examine the list of professors from the university, you will find that there is at least one male professor that’s on vacation. You will find Nakahara at that professor’s apartment.”

“And how does a kid like you come to that conclusion?” the cop asked. He wasn’t being unkind, merely skeptical, and Goro bit his lip.

“If you want to hide, you have to fit somewhere where you won’t seem out of place. A former professor is a distant enough acquaintance that you wouldn’t think to look there, but close enough that Nakahara could conceivably check his social media once in a while, thus knowing he would be out of town.”

The cop looked prepared to shake his head, but studying Goro’s determined expression, he sighed. “Let me make a quick call.” He stepped out of the office, leaving Goro to wait nervously, perched in the chair before the desk. The fifteen-thousand yen reward for information would be incredibly helpful, but more than that, a teenager solving a case like this would make an impact. If he kept doing it, and could build up a reputation, Shido would be more inclined to notice him. And it would get a criminal off the streets. He, an unwanted bastard, would be doing some good in the world.

He could feel Robin Hood somewhere in the back of his mind, pleased by the idea.

He ended up waiting in that office for a very long time, completely unaware of what was going on outside. At the hour-and-a-half mark, he was starting to worry that they had forgotten about him, but then the desk cop returned with a very official-looking man in a suit behind him. The new arrival leveled an appraising look at Goro, who sat up straight and tried to pretend it wasn’t nerve-wracking wondering what was about to happen.

“We looked into Meiji University. Nakahara was indeed enrolled there, in a political science class with Mizushima Isao-sensei. Who is currently on vacation to Kyoto,” the man said.

“As I thought,” Goro said politely, swallowing down his nerves.

The man raised an eyebrow. “We dispatched two officers to his apartment. Nakahara was there, and is currently in custody. That wasn’t an area that we’d considered he’d choose to hide in at all.”

Goro tried to keep the elated expression off of his face. He’d done it! He’d solved a case the police were having trouble with, with his powers! He could really do this!

“I suppose we’ll be getting you that reward check. I don’t know how you did it, kid, but good job. What’s your name?”

The praise caused an unfamiliar warmth in his chest. Someone, for once, thought he'd done something right. He smiled, perfectly humble. “I’m just an amateur detective,” he said pleasantly. 

“My name is Akechi Goro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Learning, slowly. 
> 
> Morgana thinks everything about him was fake, but I don’t think so. As Goro said, the best lies are mostly truth.
> 
> There had to be some way for Goro to get around the doors in Mementos. Especially getting into some of the more complex targets. Not everyone was going to be crammed into the first floor of Qimranut. X’D The Phantom Thieves aren’t desperate enough to do something that dangerous, and Morgana would never let them anyway. But Goro’s got to work with what he’s got. I don’t think he’s gonna get much lower than Aiyatsbus, though, or shadows would kill him. At least right now.
> 
> (I am not a crime writer, I don’t do police investigations, no more, Goro, no more X’’’D)


	14. May 4th, 2014

The only other person currently on the police wanted list was so many floors below where Goro had been that he didn’t even bother. If the monsters in Aiyatsbus were too strong to fight more than one, he didn’t want to risk how formidable the ones deeper in would be. So in the meantime, he started looking into Shido.

For some reason, the man didn’t have an indicator in Mementos. Goro had already tried that, and nothing had come up. It was strange, since he’d assumed everyone in Tokyo would have a counterpart in the weird mental landscape of the subway. But he realized one day that the subway and Mementos weren’t locked into the nav’s entry fields. He could enter a different location, so maybe it was that Shido had his own space in the mental world, however that worked.

Sitting on a bench in Inokashira Park, he deleted everything from the entry fields, staring at the blanks for a moment before saying clearly, “Shido Masayoshi.” The nav app picked up the name, filling in the field, and his phone let out a little chime.

_-Candidate Found!-_

It was a hit! So Shido did have an area, somewhere outside the subway. Goro hunched over his phone, trying to think. Where was somewhere that Shido visited a lot? People in Tokyo were always in the subway, but an important politician like that, of course he’d be somewhere else. He didn’t ride the subway. The reflection of his inner thoughts would be somewhere he actually spent time.

“Maybe...the Diet Building?” As he spoke, the phone chimed again, and a smile spread across his face. Perfect! Now all he had to do was figure out the distortion, which was going to be the hard part. ‘Distortion’ implied that it was how people saw the place in question. For some reason, people saw the subway as the twisted mess that was Mementos. So how would someone like Shido see the Diet Building?

“A staircase?” he tried tentatively, thinking of someone climbing the metaphorical political ladder. The nav app dinged sadly.

_-Conditions have not been met!-_

“A stage? A tower? A castle?” After each incorrect guess, the same message and sad tone met him. Goro shook his head. He was clearly on the wrong track. He tried to think back to all the speeches he’d listened to, all the times he’d watched Shido on television. There had to be some sort of common thread…

One of the caretakers at the children’s home had been watching a clip of his speech on the news the other night, from his impromptu appearance in Shibuya. They had been talking about how refreshing it was, to see a politician willing to mingle in the city like that, but Goro tried to remember what he’d been saying.

_Setting sail towards a brighter future…_ That was something he’d said multiple times, and it was a strange metaphor to use. Could it be?

“No… Is that even possible?” He glanced down at his phone, brow furrowed. “A ship?”

_-Candidate Found! Reduce distance to begin navigation.-_

He got it! Goro stared at the phone in shock, all three fields filled in and the red eye pulsing, waiting to shift him into that other world. He could only assume he had to physically go to the Diet Building to actually activate the shift, and quickly he grabbed his bag and headed for the train station. If he could get near Shido’s inner self, he could figure out what he was really like, and maybe get an idea of how to approach him in the real world. It was the perfect plan.

***

There were no children in the neighborhood of the Diet Building, so Goro did his best to stay as inconspicuous and out-of-the-way as possible as he pulled up the nav menu. He looked up at the building anxiously, and tapped the screen to go. He still wasn’t used to the strange, warping pressure of shifting between the real world and the mental areas, and he shut his eyes, just trying to keep his feet.

When he opened them again, the building itself was the same, but it and he were atop a massive ship, sailing through a Tokyo flooded almost to the tops of the skyscrapers. Goro looked down at himself, noting that his clothes had changed again, but he put that aside in favor of hurrying to the ship’s railing, looking out over the city in shock.

This was Shido’s mental landscape. It was incredible, impossible, but also unsettling. What did it mean, that he saw a drowned city with the Diet Building sailing through it? There was nothing else as far as he could see, just water and tilted, crumbling buildings. The ship was all that survived, like an ark. This couldn’t be right. Shido was working towards a better future for Japan, not...this.

Right?

When he entered the Diet Building, he found an opulent interior, fitting the luxury cruise ship that it had become. He fit in perfectly in his princely outfit, wandering among handfuls of well-dressed people. It wasn’t even close to the amount of people Goro would expect on a cruise ship, and none of them had the golden eyes that he had come to associate with people’s inner selves. But they couldn’t be real people either, and he finally concluded that if this area of the mental world was created by Shido, these people must be, too. Part of the scenery, probably based on people in reality; maybe Shido’s impressions of people in reality? All wearing masks, which bothered Goro more than he wanted to admit. But at least he blended in.

He wound his way upstairs, listening in on conversations as he went.

“I’m so glad my connections got me a place on this ship.”

“It will mean something one day, that I supported him from the beginning.”

“Those of us of high class deserve this luxury. Shido-san is truly the future of this country.”

Goro picked up a flute of champagne from a wandering waiter, carrying it around in an effort to fit in as he entered an anteroom a few floors up. Something about this place was making him uncomfortable, and it wasn’t just because he wasn’t used to being allowed anywhere so obviously luxurious. This ship was something special, something elite. It certainly wasn’t the welcoming, optimistic future for all that Shido spoke of on television.

The massive doors at the end of the hall opened, and Shido himself appeared, flanked by bodyguards. Golden eyes looked over the assembled crowd of eager guests, and the man smiled indulgently. “I’m glad you could all be here today.”

Goro listened intently as he began to talk, giving the same sort of speech as he would usually give on TV. But all that Goro could focus on were the differences. The Shido that spoke in the real world always focused on making a better future for _all_ people. But this one spoke of creating a great country for the chosen few, the elite, the powerful, and just using the masses for support. He called them ignorant. He called them mindless. He implied that he alone was the one who could lead the country to prosperity.

“For the success of the chosen of this nation, a few sacrifices are a small price to pay. Even if everything else goes under, we shall sail on unharmed.”

“And what about everyone else?” Goro hadn’t realized he’d decided to speak until the words were out of his mouth. Shido’s golden eyes turned to him, and he straightened up, trusting his mask to give him confidence. “What about people without money, homes, families? People that have been cast aside by society? People that you have promised before to provide a future for? What place do they have on this grand ship of yours?”

Shido’s eyes narrowed. “They don’t. If the trash of society gets washed away, all the better for the rest of us to begin building the future. I will personally assure that only the best receive their place in my new Japan.” A cruel smirk curled his lips. “And anyone that gets in my way will be eliminated.”

Goro stared at him. This was what Shido really thought. The man on television, who seemed so personable, so concerned about the citizens, was a lie. The real him was this...this _tyrant_ , sailing along in his ship and not caring who he had to destroy or how many he had to drown.

His fingertips felt numb, tingling with power, and a red haze was filling his vision. “The people you _abandoned_ aren’t _trash_ ,” he said harshly, taking an aggressive step forward. “My _mother_ wasn’t trash!” He’d never felt so angry in his life. He’d hoped there had been some sort of mistake. He’d dreamed of a father that would care about him, and now that he was finally here, his father...was a _monster_. His father had left them to fend for themselves, and his mother was dead because of it. His father didn’t care about _anyone!_ His father was the one that needed to be washed away!

_That’s right. He’s the reason you’re alone. He’s the reason you’ve been hurt. What are you going to do about it?_

That wasn’t Robin Hood’s voice. Goro gasped, and Shido gestured to his bodyguards.

“Get rid of this kid.”

As Shido disappeared back into the room behind the grand door, the bodyguards turned into great, hulking monsters, before bursting and resolving themselves into monstrous dogs. Goro reached for his sword, eyes wide, and could feel Robin Hood offering a warning that these monsters were ridiculously strong even as he noticed the other masked people stepping back. And then the other voice, from inside his head, spoke up again, dark and gleeful.

_Swear your intentions!_

“I’ll destroy him!” Goro shouted. “I’ll tear him down to _nothing!_ ” He felt dizzy, barely there, like he was about to fly apart at the seams. The maddening rage inside of him needed an outlet, and the new voice was all too happy to answer.

_Good. There is no place for obedient princes here. I am thou, thou art I. You burn for chaos and revenge. Call my name!_

Goro lifted his hand to his mask. “Arise! _Loki!_ ”

Another persona rose into being behind him, a hoofed figure perched atop a longsword. He was difficult to look at, patterned in a dazzling array of black and white, and he leaned his head on his hand with unaffected casualness. Goro pointed at the monstrous dogs, not knowing what he was doing but just knowing he had to do something. “Break them!”

Loki spun his sword, and a red aura burst beneath the monsters. They shuddered, growling and snarling, and their eyes lost the odd clarity that most of the monsters had, becoming empty and maddened. Goro took a step back as Loki vanished, his mask reappearing, and he watched in amazement as the monsters turned on the masked crowd and attacked.

Goro didn’t stick around to watch the carnage, sprinting through the anteroom towards the doors. He pounded on them furiously, even stepping back and drawing his gun and firing at the locks. But it didn’t even make a mark, and he kicked the door in frustration. That had to be the core of this area; he’d be willing to bet these doors were the only way in. Of course Shido would protect himself, even inside his head.

He whirled around, realizing that more monsters were arriving as backup. They had their hands full dealing with their berserk brethren, but at least one had noticed the boy trying to force his way through the doors, and Goro knew he had to go. He took off at a dead run, straight towards the monsters, who were caught off-guard by his sudden charge. Swinging his sword wildly, he broke through, tearing back down three flights of stairs and out the front doors, racing for the bow of the ship and activating the nav as he went.

He ended up sprawled on the lawn of the building next door to the Diet, and hurriedly pushed himself to his feet. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice the scruffy teenager, and he headed for the train station as quickly as he could without looking suspicious.

Shido Masayoshi was not the man he’d thought he was. His mother was dead because of a wretched man who thought only of the powerful. Any hope he’d had of facing his father and gaining a real family was replaced by a desire to bring him down and show him just a taste of the hell that Goro’s life had been because Shido had abandoned them. The only question was _how._ Powers or not, the monsters in Shido’s mental world were far stronger than anything he’d encountered in Mementos. Ripping through the ship wasn’t going to be an option.

Without information that Shido’s inner self could provide, taking him down in reality was going to be nearly impossible. It was going to take a plan unlike anything he’d had to come up with before. But Goro had a goal, now. Stronger than being a detective. Stronger than finding a family. He was going to make Shido Masayoshi regret ever leaving him behind.

***

The crack in the wall of the stone box was virtually nonexistent when Goro woke up there after going to bed. There was only the tiniest thread of light shining through, and he couldn’t even hear the faint music anymore. But the voice came through clear as ever, and Goro dragged himself upright when it addressed him.

**“You continue to be a most unique guest,”** it said, sounding mildly impressed. **“This room has never seen someone have such a duality as to awaken two personas from within their heart. But yet, your heart has closed itself off even more. Something has occurred to affect your worldview even farther.”**

“Shido-san...is not what I thought he was,” Goro murmured.

**“I see. Hatred and betrayal have forced you to retreat deeper within your shelter. But it has also awakened a new power within you.”** The voice chuckled. **“The power to break the chains upon someone’s heart is a versatile thing. It cannot be anticipated what someone will do when their inhibitions are removed.”**

Goro said nothing, pulling the thin blanket around his shoulders protectively. Could he use that power, the one that had turned the shadows berserk, on someone’s inner self, not just the monsters? What would it do to someone, if he did that? But there was a more pressing question.

“Will he know me? If his inner self saw me?” he asked, very quietly.

**“He will not. The person in reality is unaware of what happens in the metaverse.”**

“Metaverse…” It sounded like a true name, not just something to call it like ‘mental world’. Goro filed that away for later. If the Shido in reality wouldn’t know him, that was reassuring. And with how arrogant his inner self seemed, it was likely that the golden-eyed version wouldn’t remember who he was after only a few minutes and waving him off to be disposed of.

He needed a plan. He needed a way to get close to Shido, gain his trust. And then, once he was near enough...

He was special, though. Having two personas… The voice implied that that was something other people didn’t have. So even if there were other people out there who could do the same thing as him, he was unique. A genuine smile spread across his face as he started to doze off again. He had something that only he could do, and he could use that power to make things right.

_I’ll get him, mom. For both of us._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The road to hell is paved with...well, not 'good' intentions, in this case, but intentions that didn't have quite so much collateral damage attached.
> 
> In reference to a comment I got last chapter, if people are rooting for Akechi here, I’m doing something right. ^_^ If Atlus isn’t going to give us all the background that would help his story, _I will_. This chapter was another one that I'm nervous about, though, because obviously something important happened. X'D
> 
> It’s fun to write out his train of thought on how things work and have him be juuuuust slightly wrong. He’s got the ‘what’, but the ‘why’ isn’t quite right. Just goes to show how easily things can go off the rails without a proper guide. I was being careful not to use “metaverse” or “shadows” until now for that reason, since he wouldn’t know the terms to call things without knowing Morgana or the Velvet residents or Wakaba.
> 
> And no, he doesn’t have the Black Mask outfit yet. It isn’t tied specifically to Loki. I don’t see it as rage; it’s...a specific sort of mindset. I think.


	15. July 4th, 2014

A blessing and curse of humanity was that humans were, ultimately, creatures of routine. It was easy to fall into a comfortable pattern and stay there, living out peaceful days and pushing worry to the back of their minds. Which was why, after the assurance that they simply needed to wait, it was easy for the residents of Iwatodai’s unofficial Shadow Operatives’ base to let time get away from them. A week became two, two weeks became a month, and one month became almost four, until one day Minato woke up and realized that they hadn’t heard _anything_.

They could be forgiven for getting distracted. College, work, dodging inquiries from Public Safety… With no immediate threats necessitating exploring fantastical and dangerous locations, life went on as normal for their scattered group of friends. The most exciting thing that was happening was Hamuko and Shinjiro planning their wedding, since Shinjiro had finally worked up the nerve to propose.

And their meta-space guests had settled surprisingly well into being human. Minato was starting to be suspicious of Margaret’s claim that they were less human than him and Ryoji. This far in, his ‘cousins’ could pass for having lived in reality for years, after lots of practice.

“We’re heading out!” Ryoji called from the front door, trying to get his shoe on while balancing on one foot. He’d been promoted to manager of Chagall Cafe, which Minato absolutely wasn’t going to complain about, because the fancy waistcoat looked amazing on him.

Beside him, Theodore was waiting to leave with him, wearing much more casual clothes. He’d gotten a part-time job at the bookshop in the station, helping the elderly couple there with stocking and organizing the heavy volumes. They were getting on in years, and appreciated his presence a lot, and he was learning to be less timid dealing with the bookshop customers.

“We’ll see you later!” Minato called back from the kitchen. A quick glance revealed that Elizabeth was doing fine with the mixer, and he hurried out to kiss his boyfriend goodbye. “If Elizabeth succeeds, there’ll be meringues when you get home.”

“She’ll do fine. She’s got the best teacher,” Ryoji said with a grin. “We’re off, then.”

“See you later, Minato-san,” Theodore waved, and they headed out.

Minato went back into the kitchen, leaning over Elizabeth’s shoulder as she pulled the beaters out of the mixture. “That’s the right consistency; see how it’s staying pointy when you lift the mixer up?”

“I see! So that means it will form the appropriate shapes when we put it on the baking sheet. And then the flames shall crisp them into chewy goodness!” Cooking certainly suited Elizabeth’s dramatic nature. But as she went to rinse the mixer, she shot him a sly glance. “They’re gone?”

“Off to work until dinner time. Margaret should be leaving by the time these come out of the oven, and we’ll be in the clear,” Minato replied, beginning to dollop the mixture onto the baking sheet. Margaret volunteered at the Iwatodai Public Library, feeling more comfortable both with something to do and surrounded by books. But the important part was that all of them would be out, and Ken would be at school, so no one would be there to stop them from heading out and finding a way to bust through the locked door.

They’d waited long enough.

***

Part one of the plan went off without a hitch, and Margaret headed out with a freshly-baked meringue and no suspicion whatsoever. Minato and Elizabeth left the other meringues to cool and dry on the counter, and set off to the train station.

“There’s an old quarry outside the city,” Minato explained once they were on the train. “The Kirijo group used it for mining, obviously, but also for testing stuff away from the main population center. So it’s the perfect place to set off a powerful spell.”

“Excellent. To think there would be such a place just a short train ride away.” Elizabeth was standing in the middle of the mostly-empty car, refusing to hold onto the hand grips and swaying like a surfer to keep her balance in time with the train’s movement. At the far end of the car, two small children were mimicking her, and Minato suppressed a tiny, amused smile. He really needed to convince her one day that transportation was not a test of athleticism.

“How did you discover this quarry place, Minato-san?”

She successfully kept her balance as the train slowed to a stop at their destination, and Minato waved her to follow as he disembarked. “Mitsuru-senpai told me about it after I started practicing with my powers. We have the training rooms and stuff, but those mimic the conditions of meta-space, and I needed a place in reality to practice. So she let me come out here and throw fireballs. It was cool.”

It was a bit of a hike up the road past the small cluster of buildings at this particular station, and then the road turned sharply to descend into a giant, rocky hole in the ground. Elizabeth looked around in fascination, but Minato made a beeline for the very bottom center, hoping that being that far down would contain the explosion as much as possible. “All right. Call the door. Let’s do this.”

Elizabeth summoned up the ornate blue door, watching it fade gradually into existence, though she looked more reluctant than she had on the way there. They opened it, making sure that the metal door was still there and they weren’t about to nuke the hallway by accident, and Minato waved Elizabeth to step back. “It shouldn’t affect you, but probably better to take cover just in case.”

She hesitated. “Minato-san… What if this doesn’t work?”

Minato frowned. “What do you mean? It has to work; it’s the strongest spell any of us know.”

“I have been reading on your internet about thought experiments,” Elizabeth said. When he stared at her, baffled by the sudden shift in topic, she just continued. “Wikipedia is a truly fascinating labyrinth of knowledge. I went from Jungian psychology and ended up at Schrodinger’s Cat. A truly heinous thing to do to a cat, were it an actual experiment.”

“...okay, what does that have to do with blowing up the door?” Minato asked blankly.

She picked at the hem of her t-shirt. “As we stand now, we do not know whether Armageddon will work. So we can retain the hope that it will. But if we try it, and it does not work… I do not know where we could go from there. Is it better to maintain the hope of success than to see that hope be destroyed?”

Minato walked over to put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s...not exactly how Schrodinger’s Cat works, I think. But if this doesn’t work, I’m sure we’ll think of something else. Or the Trickster will awaken. Whichever comes first. But we have to try.” He tilted his head curiously. “You’re really worried, aren’t you?”

Elizabeth huffed with frustration. “I’ve never had to worry about the future before. The Velvet Room was untouchable. There was no point in ‘what ifs’; we simply guided and aided our guests, whatever their choices. But now… I am afraid, Minato, and I _do not like it_. I cannot help but imagine what will happen if that door never opens again. I have been trying very hard not to think about it all this time, and I am certain my siblings are doing the same.”

“That might be the most human you’ve ever sounded,” Minato said. But he squeezed her shoulder, trying to be reassuring and deciding not to point out that she had left off the honorific. “Do you remember the first time I showed you around Iwatodai?”

“It was December of that year, before everything ended,” Elizabeth said. “I would not forget something so significant.”

“All of us were scared. Afraid of dying, afraid of forgetting… Varying degrees of apathetic and suicidal. And you showed up and helped remind me that we still had a choice: to act, to fight. That’s what we’re doing now. We’re making a choice to act. Even if it doesn’t work, at least we tried.” Minato smiled, then deadpanned, “Besides, I’m not going to let a door make me depressed. Especially not when I’m part-door. That’s like being betrayed by a distant relative.”

Quips about his status as one-half of the Great Seal, when phrased like that, were guaranteed to get at least a tiny smile out of her, and this one didn’t disappoint. Elizabeth shoved him good-naturedly, then took several steps back. “Fine. Cast the spell,” she said, attempting her usual unaffected attitude.

“You sure?”

“Yes, go on, before I change my mind or my sister gets home and wonders where we’ve gone.”

Minato turned to focus completely on the door, reaching for Lucifer and Satan to combine the fusion spell. He swayed on his feet a bit, arms outstretched; Universe or not, invoking two of the highest-level personas was still draining, especially in reality. But he gestured sharply at the door, and Armageddon cast, temporarily blinding them with a glaring white light.

When they’d blinked the glare from their eyes, both of them slumped with defeat. The door stood there, as intact as ever despite the churned rock now scattered around it. Armageddon had smoothed the bottom of the quarry into a round crater, with the door at the center. Minato walked over the crushed-up gravel to press his hand to the surface, which was as smooth and cool to the touch as ever. There wasn’t even a dent. “Well… Now we know, I guess.”

Elizabeth just looked at the ground, trying to beat back the wave of disappointment flooding through her. “I guess…” she echoed, and Minato came over to put an arm around her.

“Look, I’m...not the best at comforting people. But we’ll figure it out.”

She leaned into him, eyes closed. “Maya-san’s penchant for positive thinking seems to be rubbing off on you. But I am glad, at least, that we chose to flee the Velvet Room to here. You have been an incredibly accommodating ‘cousin’, Minato-san.”

He just smiled to himself, as they stood there staring at the impenetrable door. Armageddon might have failed, but there was still hope.

***

When they got home, Elizabeth went to put the meringues away, and Minato called his sister.

_“Hey, Minato! Oh my gosh, you’re not going to believe the time we’ve had trying to pick flowers.”_

“That’s right, you were going to Sumaru today to talk to Maya-san’s friend.” Minato found a comfortable spot on the couch, phone cradled against his ear. “Was he cool?”

_“Yes!”_ Hamuko’s voice was excited. _“He knows basically every flower shop in the city and half the ones in Tokyo. I didn’t realize flowers meant so many different things, but Kashihara-san’s been really helpful. And the red roses I wanted symbolize true love, so that’s perfect. We just have to figure out what to accent them with. There’s so many choices!”_

“That’s fantastic, Hamuko. All the wedding planning sounds like it’s going great.”

Hamuko hummed. _“Yeah. But what’s up with you? You sound off.”_

He should have known she’d be able to tell. “Elizabeth and I tried Armageddon today.”

_“...it didn’t work, did it? Otherwise you’d have led with that and I’d be running screaming for the nearest door. Which, I’m pretty sure there’s one here, so it wouldn’t be hard...”_

“No, it didn’t,” Minato said, sighing. “And that was the biggest gun in our arsenal, so I’m kind of at a loss. Not that I’m going to tell Elizabeth that. It’s so strange to see her worried.”

_“I know that getting involved when you’re told not to is a thing we kind of inherited from them, but maybe we’re actually stuck this time. If Armageddon really didn’t do anything, we might actually have to wait.”_ Hamuko sounded like she didn’t want to admit that, but Minato knew she was right. Waiting things out could be their only option. _“I mean, we haven’t had any dreams, either. Could we try that?”_

“That’s not really a conscious thing on our end. It’s usually Igor summoning us, isn’t it?” Minato asked. “I guess it’s worth a shot.”

_“Unless we think of something else to throw at the door in reality, that’s probably our best bet for now.”_

“Yeah…” Minato sighed. For now, he’d really rather not focus on the disappointment. “So tell me what venue you were thinking for the wedding, again? I know you’d considered Meiji Shrine…”

_“Yep! There were a few places on our list. We’re trying to decide how traditional we want to go… There’s always Destinyland if we want to go really big, after all!”_

It was surprisingly relaxing, listening to his sister go on about wedding plans. Minato already knew that his part wasn’t going to be difficult. He was just going to give the bride away in lieu of their parents. Akihiko was going to be the best man, of course, and Hamuko was still trying to decide who was going to be her maid of honor. There were a lot of things to consider, and a lot of details to iron out.

Honestly, Minato was going to be glad for the distraction, once they set a date and started planning in earnest.

***

He really should have expected that his other half would know exactly what he’d done, too.

Ryoji waited until they’d gotten ready for bed that night, and then in the dark of their room, asked quietly, “Armageddon didn’t work, did it?”

“How did you know that’s what we did today?” Minato asked, not denying the observation as he pulled up the blankets.

“When you cast something that strong, I can feel it through our bond,” Ryoji mumbled, nuzzling into his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. I’m more concerned about Elizabeth. She’s a lot more worried than she acts,” Minato said, wrapping an arm around him.

Ryoji snorted. “You two are a lot alike, you know. No wonder she was picked to be your attendant.” Flinging an arm over Minato’s stomach, he added, “What now?”

Minato sighed. “Hamuko thinks we have to wait it out. Or try to use dreams to get in. Which is worth a shot.”

“Probably. And waiting won’t be so bad, since we’ll be plenty busy with the whole wedding thing eventually.” Ryoji stifled a giggle. “Maybe we should get married too.”

“Illegal,” Minato deadpanned, after a moment of surprise. He hoped it was dark enough that Ryoji wouldn’t notice him blushing. “And that’s not fair. You have to ask properly.”

“Let’s get married, and go on a honeymoon to Italy~ Italy looks awesome,” Ryoji chimed, ignoring him.

“You don’t even speak Italian!”

“I’m Death, I speak everything, come on.”

Minato sat up a bit to look down at him. “Wait, really?”

_“Oui, vraiment. Parlo tutto.”_ Ryoji blinked innocently up at him, blue eyes bright with mischief. _“Tha gaol agam ort.”_

Minato had no idea what any of that meant, other than ‘yes’, but something about the look on Ryoji’s face told him it was probably mushy. “Showoff,” he grumbled, even as his blush refused to fade.

_“Immer,”_ Ryoji replied with a grin before settling back against him contentedly. Minato rolled his eyes, but kept him close. Wedding or no wedding, Ryoji was always the biggest distraction of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured we needed a bit of a break after all of the stuff in the past three chapters, plus… Honestly, I have no idea how the specific conversation Akechi had with Shido would have gone down. I’m going to gloss over it when we get back to Akechi’s narrative, but writing the whole thing out… Eh. Better to leave it to imagination, I think. There’s more traumatizing things for Akechi to get up to, anyway.
> 
> Elizabeth’s wiki-walk can be done in 9 steps. I forgot to keep track of what they were, though. If you can do it in shorter, good job!
> 
> Next chapter might take a little longer; Akechi's summer vacation is coming to an end. Metaphorically, of course. :’)
> 
> (Also I am dead in the span of like a day one of my favorite P5 fics is done and another updated and I am Emotional. Why are people always crying in the club I am crying in bed like a loser because what an ending+tears of laughter holy fuck I have whiplash.)


	16. August 18th-21st, 2014

For once in his life, things were actually going in Goro’s favor.

Over the past few months, he’d solved several more difficult cases using his access to the metaverse, raising his reputation with the police department, and had finally tested his power to break the chains of people’s hearts. He’d picked the man who had been his third foster father as his test subject. A man that beat his foster child on a daily basis would hardly be a loss, if he went berserk and got arrested. It would be fitting karma, honestly.

And that was basically what ended up happening. Goro had found him in Mementos, almost at the bottom of Aiyatsbus, and had used Loki’s power to break him. He’d seen on the news later that day that the man had lost his temper at a bar and caused a fight that left one person in the hospital. All that suppressed rage had poured out at the slightest trigger, and Goro had watched in amazement as the report concluded that he had just ‘suddenly snapped’.

And suddenly, his in to Shido had fallen into his lap.

Another politician was spreading rumors about Shido’s shady deals, trying to cause a scandal, rumors that Goro was certain were true based on the whispers he’d heard in Mementos. But Goro broke him after a harrowing trip to an even deeper area of the subway, causing him to blurt out his affair with an underaged prostitute in the middle of an interview. Information from his inner self led Goro to the evidence of the affair on his computer, and suddenly people were hailing ‘Ace Detective Akechi Goro’ as the one who had cracked the case and put together enough evidence to take it to trial.

The one thing that he hadn’t anticipated was that Shido understood what he was doing. When he’d finally met up with the man, offering his ‘special ability’ to gather information with the politician’s downfall as proof, Shido had revealed that he knew about the metaverse, even if he couldn’t go there himself. He had been looking into research on something called ‘cognitive psience’, and was thrilled to hire someone who could enter that world freely. Goro had suddenly found himself with his own apartment, a place at a prestigious private high school where no one knew he was an orphan, and a proper part-time job as an intern at the police department, all facilitated by Shido. All he had to do was gather information, find things that benefitted Shido, and strategically break someone here and there to get them to ruin themselves. Which only upped his own reputation as he ‘solved’ the cases. It was overwhelming, the sudden recognition of his abilities. He basked in it, feeling needed for the first time in his life.

And most importantly, he was gaining Shido’s trust, because he’d figured out what he was going to do. Shido wanted to be prime minister? Goro was going to get him there. Give him everything he wanted, and then confront him with the knowledge that the only reason he was prime minister was because _Goro had been on his side_. Tell him the truth, that Goro was the bastard son he’d abandoned. And then he was going to break him, and take everything from him, and throw him straight into a hell that he could have avoided if he’d only been a better person from the start.

Today, he had two assignments. He needed information on the director of the SIU, who had some suspicious rumors hovering around him that Shido wanted confirmed. And then he was to find the shadow of a woman named Isshiki Wakaba and destroy it. He’d never destroyed a person’s shadow, as he now knew they were called, before, but he thought he had a pretty good idea of what would happen. After all, all the other shadows he destroyed came back. There was never any shortage of them in Mementos. So he figured this woman would pass out, probably spend a day or two out of it, possibly end up in the hospital, and then when her shadow re-formed she’d know that it would be better to _listen_ when someone asked her to shut down her research.

But that was for later. Right now, he was having too much fun.

It should probably be more disturbing than it was, to know that the SIU director thought of himself as the ringmaster of a circus of underlings, but Goro was too entertained by the entire existence of the Palace to be concerned. Shido’s ship had proven that Palaces, since he knew the proper word for those too, now, didn’t have to be realistic. But this was hammering it home, as he ventured through the corridors of the SIU headquarters that had warped into a multitude of acrobatic and amazing obstacles.

“The ringmaster will be at the center of everything,” the animal-tamer he was talking to said with a smile. She was quite pretty, actually, with long steel-grey hair. Goro’s eyes followed where she pointed out the window, towards where the courtyard would be in the normal building. Here, there was a massive tent set up. Every door he’d tried so far was locked, though, so he was going to have to find another way to get to it. The animal-tamer smiled. “My act keeps improving. One day, I’ll have a much more prestigious part in the show.”

“You keep the big cats in order, then?” Goro asked, his eyes flicking to the white tiger she was lounging against. The tiger had been staring at him the whole time.

The tamer nodded. “One by one, I keep them in line, making sure that they aren’t a threat to anyone else.” She beckoned him forward. “You can pet him, if you like.”

Goro’s eyes widened. His first instinct was fear; there was nothing but her to stop that tiger from biting his hand off. But then he considered that he was never going to have an opportunity like this again, and pulled his glove off, tentatively petting the top of the tiger’s head. It blinked at him, then closed its eyes, and he couldn’t stop the shaky smile that crossed his face. “This is...wow,” he whispered.

“You’ve got potential, little prince,” she said, watching him kindly. “Maybe you could be an animal-tamer yourself one day.”

“Thank you,” Goro said, surprised that a cognitive would be so nice to him. It was only after he’d carried on that he realized she was probably some kind of prosecutor in reality. It was a prosecutor’s job to put criminals in jail, ensuring they were ‘tamed’, after all.

He made his way to the roof through yet more strange rooms, including one that was nothing but flaming hoops that he had to jump through, just barely avoiding setting himself on fire. Once he was up there, though, he realized that the only way into the tent was going to be through the top. There were too many shadows on the floor. And the only way to get to the top of the tent was the trapeze set up across the courtyard.

Goro studied the top of the tent curiously. There was usually a high-wire in a circus tent, and considering the rumors he was here to investigate, it was guaranteed there would be safety nets in the director’s own domain. But even if there weren’t, he’d found quite a few items in Mementos that healed injuries, and he had enough that he could spare a few if he messed this up. Besides, as with the tiger, when was he going to have a chance like this again? He took a deep breath, running and jumping for the closest trapeze bar. Swinging high over the tent, ignoring the nervousness that coiled in his stomach, he let go of the bar at the apex of the swing, dropping and hitting the taut fabric with a bounce. He jabbed his saber into the tent, slicing a gap, and when he spotted the safety net he’d been anticipating, he let himself tumble through the torn fabric to fall into the welcoming netting. The breath he’d been holding rushed out of him in a shaky giggle, and he rolled over to survey the floor through the mesh. There was a platform in the middle, with the director’s shadow observing the acts around him. Goro just had to make it down there through the maze of nets.

***

When he stood face to face with the man’s shadow at last, high on the platform in the center of the tent, he drew his gun and smiled. “Good afternoon, Director.”

 _“Wh-Who are you?”_ the director demanded. He took a step back, but there was nowhere else to go on the platform.

“Who I am isn’t important. I have a question for you.” Goro did his best to keep the gun steady, still not used to threatening someone that looked like a real person, even if it wasn’t. But people in these Palaces were different from people in Mementos. You couldn’t just walk up and start a conversation; they were much more wary of strangers, and much less willing to talk. “Is it true, that you got your position as director by forging evidence?”

 _“Of course not!”_ the man snapped. _“What would make you think that?!”_

“What kind of circus has so many nets surrounding its ringmaster?” Goro countered the question with a question. “Quite an overwhelming assurance that nothing will go wrong for you, right? You couldn’t win the cases and secure a promotion on your own, so you started forging evidence to get you there. Propping you up and keeping you from failing. Pathetic.”

 _“Who are you to judge? You don’t know anything about what kind of work I’ve had to put in,”_ the director snarled. _“Those criminals were guilty. I just ensured they wouldn’t get away with it!”_

Goro grinned. That was easier than he’d thought. This guy considered himself a ringmaster, but he didn’t have enough of a spine to control anything more than his clowns. Shido was going to roll right over him, if he was so willing to try to justify himself when he was confronted alone.

He tucked his gun away again. “So it is true. That was all I needed.” With a wave, he tipped backwards off of the platform before the man could turn into some sort of monster, landing in yet another net stretched below even as the director’s shadow started yelling for someone to grab him. 

A circus tent full of safety nets, all to protect himself… What a despicable man.

Getting back to the palace entrance so he could leave was a challenge, but not impossible. Goro would rather dodge enraged shadows than deal with the entire thing collapsing. Shido had told him that the research on cognitive psience said that Palaces were formed from distorted desires, and when you took out the ‘core’, the Palace collapsed and the distortions vanished. He could only assume that the core was the person’s shadow. If he had destroyed the director’s shadow, the circus would have imploded, and presumably when the shadow re-formed the director would have a different outlook on his surroundings.

He left the Palace, heading immediately to the nearest subway station to hop into Mementos, where he made his way to the rest stop in Aiyatsbus and stretched out on the bench. Fumbling in his pocket, he pulled out a shining stone. He pressed it to his forehead and let the healing magic seep into him to take away some of his exhaustion. He didn’t usually do two targets in one day. He didn’t usually do two targets in two _weeks_ , especially not when one was a Palace, but Shido was insistent that Isshiki Wakaba needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. Goro wasn’t expecting that a scientist’s shadow would be too difficult to deal with. It was still a shame that neither Robin Hood nor Loki knew any healing magic, though.

He sat up, tossing the now-dull stone aside, and checked the nav. Isshiki Wakaba’s shadow was on the last floor of the area, the same floor as the door. It was unusual to have a shadow there on the platform, but a cognitive researcher wasn’t a normal shadow.

Aiyatsbus was quiet. It was raining outside, and the shadows were lethargic, sleepy, letting Goro sneak around them without unnecessary battles. When he descended to the last area, it was easy to spot the only shadow that he had ever seen on this floor. Isshiki Wakaba was decidedly ordinary looking, with bobbed black hair and square-framed glasses over her shadow-gold eyes. She was holding a clipboard, and when she turned to Goro, she smiled widely.

_“What kind of shadow are you? You look different from the others.”_

“I’m...um, not a shadow.” Goro was acutely aware of the saber and gun on his hip. “Isshiki Wakaba?”

 _“If you’re not a shadow, what are you, then?”_ Wakaba asked, glancing down at her clipboard. _“My research still isn’t finished. I’m sure there will be so many ways this can help people, if I can just understand Palaces better…”_

Goro took a deep breath, drawing his gun. “Your research ends here.”

The shadow’s eyes blazed. _“And who are you, to tell me that? You’re just a child. You’re barely older than Futaba.”_ Darkness gathered around her, and her form shifted, becoming a cloaked figure hovering in midair and cradling something in her arms. She raised a hand, and Goro was forced to dodge as a bolt of lightning struck where he’d been standing. Of course. He _hated_ lightning attacks.

He countered with eiga, trying to keep moving to avoid getting shocked. The shadow hissed, enraged, but didn’t go down when the curse skill hit, so he tried again with kouga, only for her to shrug off the bless skill like it was nothing.

Faced with a foe resistant to one of his core elements, he called Loki and tried agilao, which didn’t appear to do any more or less damage than eiga had. All he could do was keep dodging, occasionally getting a shot off from his gun, but mostly forced to focus on spells so that he could continue moving and not get shocked. If he ended up paralyzed, that was going to be the end of it.

After a much more difficult battle than he’d been expecting, the shadow went down, turning back into the sagging form of Isshiki Wakaba. Goro panted, hunched and sore from the bolt he’d taken despite his best efforts, but he raised his gun regardless. “You’re finished here…”

_“Wait, you don’t understand! I’ve studied all of this--!”_

“I said, you’re finished!” Exhausted, already looking forward to going home and sleeping for a day straight, Goro pulled the trigger. Isshiki Wakaba’s shadow burst into motes of darkness and dispersed, and Goro sighed. He’d fulfilled his orders. By the time her shadow put itself back together, she’d know better than to ignore Shido’s request to stand down. Goro knew exactly what Shido was up to. He didn’t want anyone else learning anything more about the metaverse. Just having Goro was enough.

It made him...oddly happy. Shido was the worst of the worst, but for some reason, he still felt glad to be relied on.

It was time to go and report in, and then he could go home.

***

A few days later, he was called into Shido’s office. The man was sitting behind his desk, looking over a sheaf of papers, and he glanced up when Goro entered.

“I wanted to tell you that you did an excellent job the other day,” he said. “Isshiki Wakaba won’t be troubling me anymore.”

“Did she agree to stop her research?” Goro asked, feeling a burn of pride in his chest at the praise.

Shido chuckled. “No, it appears that she suffered from a mental shutdown due to the death of her shadow, and jumped in front of a car.”

All pride vanished, and Goro could feel the blood draining from his face. “She… She’s dead? K-Killing her shadow killed her?”

“Of course. The death of the inner self induces a mental shutdown. There’s little chance to survive after that,” Shido said calmly, as if it didn’t even matter.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Goro demanded, but Shido’s gaze sharpened.

“Are you questioning me?” he asked, each word like a blade at Goro’s throat. He’d known Shido was a disgusting man, willing to ruin and manipulate people that got in his way. But now, he knew Shido was a murderer...and he was part of that. If he argued here, was he next? His ability to enter the metaverse was too valuable...

Right?

“Of course not,” he said, pasting a placating smile on his face. “But I need to know these things in the future, so I can be certain to have the appropriate reactions prepared. I’m becoming much more of a public figure; I can’t be caught off-guard by things like this.”

Shido’s eyes narrowed. “You won’t have to deal with this. I’ve already taken care of it. Starting tomorrow, everyone will know that Isshiki Wakaba committed suicide. Nothing will tie back to me. That’s why your power is so useful.” He looked back down at his papers. “You can go. I’ll call you if something comes up.”

“Yes, sir.” He kept his mask on, somehow, all the way out of the office, all the way downstairs and out of the building, and then he was running, sprinting flat-out towards the nearest access point of Mementos as nausea curled and twisted inside of him. Through the tunnel, flinging himself down as fast as he could, almost missing an alcove as he tripped in his haste, until he could take refuge in the rest stop, the familiar blue comforting as he collapsed beside the bench and sunk his hands into his hair.

“I killed her,” he whispered harshly. “I _killed her_. She has a _child_ , oh god…” He’d potentially condemned someone else to the hell his life had been. How could he have done that?

 _We didn’t know what would happen_ , Robin Hood’s voice whispered consolingly. 

_That’s right! It is not our fault_ , Loki hissed. _Shido deliberately withheld information. He is the one to blame!_

Goro tugged at his hair, eyes squeezed shut. That was right; he hadn’t meant for her to die. He hadn’t known. It wasn’t his fault; it was Shido’s, for not telling him. And now he knew how far Shido was willing to go. He had to stay on the man’s good side, or else he might end up the same.

It was the same thing he’d been doing his whole life. Play along, make nice, hide his true feelings, because as usual there was nowhere to run. He knew how extensive Shido’s network was now. He had to hide, he had to pretend nothing was wrong, or Shido would get suspicious, and that would be the end of everything.

But could he keep doing this? Did he have a choice? Could he just run away? He would lose everything.

He barely noticed the darkness crawling up his limbs until it reached his face, forming a helmet-like mask that replaced his usual bird one. He pulled the helmet over his head, turning it over in his hands and then looking down at himself. His princely outfit had been covered by another, blue and black stripes and leather belts. He blended much better into the shadows of Mementos, but…

“What...happened?”

 _If it is no longer safe to be the prince, you must become the knight to protect yourself_ , Loki whispered, and Goro could practically feel gangling black-and-white limbs wrapping around him in a semblance of a hug, though Loki wasn’t actually summoned. _Armor yourself against those feelings that will make you weak. You are the king’s knight, simply following orders. Those orders are not your responsibility, and following them will keep you alive._

“But…” Goro whispered, and Robin Hood practically bristled with disapproval. But Loki’s voice was relentless.

_You swore vengeance on Shido’s head! Will you abandon that now, and let Isshiki Wakaba’s life go to waste?_

“No…” he said softly. He lifted the helmet, fitting it back over his head and climbing to his feet. He had to deal with this, for the sake of his goal. Now he _had_ to succeed. There had been no other way, there was blood spilled, and Loki was right. He couldn’t let that go to waste. It would all be okay, once he destroyed Shido. He hadn’t known what was going to happen to Wakaba, but she wouldn’t have died in vain.

He looked down at himself once more. What was one more mask to wear? The perfect child, the charismatic ace detective, Shido’s loyal underling, the bastard prince of the metaverse...and now the black knight working towards Shido Masayoshi’s ruin where the prince could not.

“It was only a shadow. Only a shadow…”

If he could just convince himself of that, he could get through this. His revenge depended on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one has hugged this boy in literal years. I’m counting down ‘til I can start making things better and stop making myself sad writing him.
> 
> We’re...getting surprisingly close to the end here, actually. There’s not a lot left to cover before we can just start P5 and go from there. I can think of...three and a half things, off the top of my head. So if you think I’m missing anything, now’s the time to remind me so I can see if it matches up with any of those.
> 
> Making up a Palace was a glorious realization that I can do whatever the hell I want, basically. As long as you can justify it to the person’s mindset, nothing is too strange. There’s nothing stopping Goro (or the Thieves) from having to fight a dragon, explore a haunted mansion, run a Wipeout-style obstacle course (which is a fabulous mental image honestly; I want Joker to go ricocheting off the giant bouncy balls)... I'll admit, the circus is 100% self-indulgent, though, so please don't analyze that too hard. X''''DD
> 
> Anyway, I’m taking some creative liberty with Goro’s rise as an ace detective and what he knew and when. The conversation post-11/20 is just vague enough, so I’m trying to run with what makes sense even if it’s not perfectly aligned with exactly what they said. *shrug*
> 
> ...I'm choosing to interpret the Black Mask outfit as defensive, not malevolent. To protect himself, to disconnect from what he’s doing or what he’s feeling. It will get to the point where he can call up that state of mind consciously, when he needs to, with more practice. Breaking that shell he builds up is going to be the key to helping him later, but when you’re all alone like that, rationalizing and pushing things away can be the only way to survive.


	17. December 9th, 2014

Sakura Sojiro had never pictured himself as a parent.

He liked kids well enough, but having kids of his own wasn’t a plan he’d ever considered. The life of a PSIA agent wasn’t exactly conducive to settling down and raising a normal family, so he’d settled for being the ‘fun uncle’ to his best friend’s child.

He’d never planned to get as close to Wakaba as he had, but he’d been assigned to keep tabs on her research by the department, and even though he didn’t understand a word of it, she’d been eccentric and entertaining and wonderful. It hardly felt like work, except when she dragged him off to spontaneous meetings or made him babysit Futaba with no warning. Futaba was just as good with technology as her mother and was a little terror, in his humble opinion. But he cared about her regardless.

So when Wakaba died, after filling out all the required reports and doing all the required debriefings, none of which were easy because this was his friend and not just his job, he tried to check in on Futaba to see how she was doing.

And could not find her.

He spent over three months tracking down every relative she had, only to be told at every turn that things ‘weren’t working out’ and that they’d sent her on to some other relative. Sojiro normally wouldn’t be worried, but there was a distinct undercurrent of resentment in the demeanor of many of them, and when he found Futaba’s grandparents they outright told him that they didn’t want to take care of her because she was the reason their daughter was dead. That rang alarm bells like he’d never felt before, and he redoubled his efforts to figure out which relative had her, worried for her safety for reasons he couldn’t explain.

When he finally located her, under the care of her uncle, Wakaba’s brother Youji, he realized his worries were absolutely justified.

* * *

_“Sojiro!” Futaba stumbled towards him, her eyes filled with disbelief, but after only a few steps she skidded to a halt and glanced anxiously between him and her uncle, as if expecting some kind of rebuke for acting without permission._

_Sojiro, for his part, was struck speechless. Futaba looked like she hadn’t taken a bath in a month. Her hair hung in stringy tendrils around her face, and she’d always been a skinny kid, but she looked thinner than he remembered. “Futaba… Are you all right?”_

_Youji rolled his eyes. “Of course she’s fine. I’ve been taking care of her because no one else wants her.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t surprise me, considering what she did to my sister. Maternity neurosis, I’m sure you heard.”_

_“Maternity neurosis?” Sojiro hoped his expression conveyed how much bullshit he thought that was. “Whether that’s true or not, you can’t treat a kid like that. She doesn’t look like you’re taking care of her at all.”_

_“Of course I am.” Youji grinned, gesturing at Futaba. “Right, Futaba-chan? You’ve got everything you need.”_

_Futaba stammered something, and Sojiro took a step forward, concerned. Youji frowned at her. “Speak up.”_

_She flinched, hands balling into fists, and just as Sojiro was about to ask what was wrong, she practically shouted, “No! He makes me sleep on the floor and barely feeds me and I haven’t been allowed to take a bath in ages!” It burst out of her, like she’d been suppressing all of that frustration the whole time, but apparently Sojiro being there had given her a burst of courage._

_“You little bitch,” Youji snarled, reaching for her. She ducked under his arm, darting behind Sojiro, who was already moving to be between her and her uncle._

_“You make her sleep on the floor?” Sojiro said flatly. “You don’t feed her? How the hell can you call that taking care of her?”_

_“Why should I give the brat that killed my sister any more than the bare minimum?” Youji said._

_Sojiro fixed him with the sort of glare that had made yakuza and terrorists quake in their boots. Youji was no exception. “If she’s so awful to have around, why keep her and abuse her? Her other relatives only kept her a week or so. Hell, I’ll take her. Better than this.”_

_“Sojiro!”_

_“Be quiet, Futaba.”_

* * *

In the end, Sojiro figured it out quickly. Youji was keeping her around to have access to her inheritance. Wakaba had made quite a sum as a researcher, and of course she’d left it all to Futaba. Sojiro, with Futaba’s agreement, had given Youji a solid chunk of it to be allowed to take her out of that place. He’d brought her back to his apartment, gotten her a hot bath and a plate of the curry Wakaba had helped design, and put her to bed in his room.

Now, a week later, he was finalizing paperwork to have her name removed from her family registry and moved to his, and Futaba was holed up on the couch with the laptop he’d given her to use.

She’d told him about her mom’s suicide note, and while he wasn’t sure he believed it, things were too volatile to start asking questions. He had his suspicions that there was a particular politician involved, but people that crossed him were gaining a disturbing tendency to get themselves in trouble, or disappear. He didn’t quite trust that he wouldn’t be next, considering that he had been Wakaba’s liaison to the PSIA. At this point, all he could do was protect Futaba. He’d already handed in his resignation before he’d found her, and had picked out a house in a little neighborhood on the other side of Tokyo. 

He’d given a brief consideration to contacting that group Wakaba had been so insistent on speaking with before, the Shadow Operatives, but they hadn’t seemed particularly pleased about her research in the first place, and he couldn’t bring himself to trust a group that had seemed so closed-off and secretive. No one knew anything about them, even though they were supposedly an arm of the police, and frankly Sojiro had had enough of sketchy government workings to last the rest of his life. Plus, there was no guarantee they weren’t in a politician’s pocket as well. He had no idea how deep this ran. So he was going to retire, open a cafe, and take care of his best friend’s daughter. That was his primary responsibility now.

“What are you working on, Futaba?” he called into the living room, as he signed the paperwork. ‘Sakura Futaba’ had a nice ring to it, he thought.

“Looking some stuff up online,” Futaba called back, and Sojiro shook his head, smiling. She’d refused to leave the apartment since he’d brought her here, much preferring to explore the world over the web. He couldn’t blame her, considering how people had treated her since her mother’s death. If she didn’t want to go out, yet, he wasn’t going to push her. She would get there in her own time.

***

Futaba, for her part, clicked away at the laptop urgently. ‘Looking stuff up’ wasn’t technically a lie. She was going to figure out what had happened to her mother, and if that meant hacking into the systems of everyone her mother had spoken with about her research, so be it. But this particular one was proving extremely difficult to crack, and it was taking all of her focus to get around the firewall, since they were actively fighting back.

“What are you hiding?” she muttered, still working on the encryption around the core files. She couldn’t even find records of this group in the government servers. All she’d had to go on was an email her mother had sent over a year ago. But Kirijo Mitsuru and Nanjo Kei were just CEOs of big companies. They didn’t have anything weird in their personal or work computers.

So what were the Shadow Operatives, and why had her mother been so determined to talk to them?

***

When Mitsuru made her way into the main office, she wasn’t expecting Fuuka to be typing away frantically at intervals on the main computer, several windows open with lines of scrolling code and percentages.

“I got your phone call, Yamagishi. What is it?”

Fuuka looked up, a determined gleam to her eyes. “We’re being hacked. Someone sent us an email from Nanjo-san’s account, and when I opened it, the network started to go haywire.”

Mitsuru came over to look over her shoulder as she typed away in the command prompt. “This is why all of our sensitive information is stored elsewhere. They won’t get anything but correspondence off of these. I’m impressed it’s taken this long for someone to try to hack us, though.”

That had been a key thing, when they founded the Shadow Operatives. Fuuka had set up two different sets of computers: one for normal use, and one for all of their knowledge and research on meta-space. Data on shadows, schematics for tech, maps of suspicious meta-activity, all of it was stored on a server completely disconnected from any sort of outside network. No internet, no LANs, no nothing. It was completely untouchable unless you were physically at one of the computers. It was a pain sometimes when they needed something, but it kept situations exactly like this from being too damaging.

“There’s something blocking me from pinpointing what IP address they’re coming from,” Fuuka said. “Whoever is doing this is good, but they’re not going to get anything valuable from this computer. Even our staff list is listed under our personas’ names and not ours specifically for this reason. I don’t know what they’re looking for, but they’re going to be disappointed.”

As if reacting to Fuuka’s words, a window suddenly popped up in the middle of the screen, featuring a grinning, catlike black shape with a tail and crescents for eyes. Bright green letters began to fill the window, addressing them directly.

Greetings Shadow Operatives leader Artemisia. It has been determined that you were  
uninvolved in a recent injustice we seek to rectify. Your system was challenging, but  
ultimately not a hinderance. I suggest upgrading your security for next time.  
We are Medjed, we are unseen, we will vanquish evil. 

“Medjed?” Mitsuru asked, but Fuuka was already searching for it.

“An Egyptian deity, according to a basic search. But there’s also a news article here from about six months ago about a hacker group known as Medjed. They apparently leaked emails from a company that revealed that the CEO was committing fraud. That’s apparently their only prior action, at least publicly…”

“What ‘injustice’ could a vigilante hacker group be looking into us for?” Mitsuru folded her arms, brow furrowed. “Not only do they know that we exist, but they knew enough to use Nanjo’s name to find an in to the system in the first place.”

Fuuka started up a scan to make sure that no spyware had been left behind on the computer. “I’ll look into it, but there’s no guarantee I’ll find anything, especially if no code was left behind. And I’m going to upgrade the firewalls so this hopefully won’t happen again.”

Mitsuru nodded. “I’m going to call Kei-san and let him know what happened. He’ll need to change out his email password, at the absolute bare minimum.”

First Isshiki Wakaba commits suicide, now a hacker decides to break into their system, even though they didn’t find anything they wanted? Two strange things in the course of a few months… They had looked into Wakaba’s death, of course, but there had been nothing suspicious to be found. She had destroyed her research and thrown herself in front of a car, and her daughter had been taken in by family. Mitsuru could only assume she’d found something truly upsetting, which would be regretful, but they had tried to warn her what kind of terrible things could come of poking around in meta-space.

...god help them if she had poked Nyarlathotep by accident.

Mitsuru shook her head. Things would be far worse already if that were the case, and there was no way that the Velvet Room would still be locked down. Igor would have called all of them, Wild Card or not.

But it still wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for any other strange incidents.

Just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sojiro “I’m not planning to be a parent” Sakura, who two years from now is the official parent of one kid and the unofficial parent of seven other kids and a cat. Also it took half an hour to figure out how to make that text green. I am not proud. X'''D
> 
> Sojiro has a feeling, but he also knows that Shido’s dangerous, and he’s not risking his life when he’s got Futaba to take care of. And Futaba probably spent a lot of time looking for information about her mother, but with the research ‘destroyed’ and no proper trails to follow, I think hitting dead end after dead end eventually drove her to the depression we see her with in the game. If there’s no other answer, you’ll eventually fall into believing that the one they told you was correct.
> 
> Those same dead ends are what’s keeping the Shadow Operatives from looking farther. Being killed in meta-space doesn’t exactly leave clues to follow...
> 
> (The wedding might happen offscreen, guys, because I don’t know if I can write enough to justify giving it it’s own chapter. In which case, there’s two more things that have to happen to reach the end of this.)


	18. October 26th, 2015

Interviews were quite possibly the worst part of being a celebrity. Being polite and pleasant in public was one thing, but to have to do it on-camera, in front of hypothetical millions? He’d gladly skip them if he could get away with it. But it was all necessary to keep up his image as the charismatic, personable Detective Prince. He could care less about his fans, but the better his reputation was, among both them and the police, the more leeway he had to work with cases and help Shido.

His most recent orders had been to induce a mental shutdown on one of the Ministers of State, and then, several weeks later, break Shido’s rival for the position. The minister had been a corrupt man, with yakuza ties and several unsavory dealings in his background. And he was on the older side, so his death had ultimately been ruled a stroke. The rival, well… Voters didn’t look kindly on people who purposefully drove their cars into storefronts.

The people he’d broken had been more violent lately. The media was calling them ‘rampage accidents’, but the police were calling them ‘psychotic breakdowns’, and they’d handed the case over to him. A collection of strange rampages out of nowhere, as if the person had just snapped… It was suspicious, and he was tasked with finding a link between these people.

Goro, of course, knew exactly what the link was, which was going to make it easy enough to keep dancing around the true answer and leading them on. As for the shadows he destroyed, the media hadn’t reported them as anything other than their apparent causes. But he’d heard whispers that the SIU was planning to get involved, and that the director couldn’t stop certain prosecutors from poking around anymore. They’d even called Goro, requesting a meeting.

But he could worry about the meeting once his interview was over.

Of course he couldn’t have done the show last week, when they were interviewing the cast of Phoenix Rangers Neo Featherman. That would have been too much good luck for a teenager that scheduled his Saturdays around being home at seven to watch the new episode. His one indulgence in a hurricane of keeping up with the adults around him. No, the other celebrity guest was an idol that was there to talk about her new album. It was her second major release since she’d taken a year off and then made a remarkable comeback. Goro didn’t really care, but he supposed the sort of people that were his fans did.

He talked a bit about his work, touching briefly on the psychotic breakdowns and his theories on what was happening, and then got to sit back and watch them chat with the bubbly idol, counting down the minutes until he could go and offering the occasional friendly response when attention turned back to him.

When it was over, he tried to gather his things and go, but a cheerful voice brought him up short in the back hallways. “Akechi-san!”

Goro turned very slowly to face her, TV smile firmly in place. “Ah, Kujikawa-san, can I help you with something?”

Kujikawa Rise beamed at him. “I just wanted a chance to chat with you without cameras for a minute. It’s exciting, to know that I’ve met both incarnations of the Detective Prince!”

“Oh? Are you acquainted with Shirogane-san?” Goro asked. 

“Yeah, we went to school together when I took a year off, and we still keep in touch. She’s a good friend,” Rise said.

That was new information, not what he would have expected from a pop idol, and he tucked it away in the back of his mind. Goro nodded. “She seems like an admirable person. I looked to her as a source of inspiration. It’s not easy to get started as a detective at such a young age. But pursuing any career as a teenager is a long road, as I’m sure you know first-hand.” Be humble, smile, redirect the conversation back to her.

“Oh, definitely. But my friends have never stopped encouraging me, and that’s helped a lot.” She perked up as an idea suddenly came to her, and asked brightly, “Are you busy today? Naoto-kun’s passing through on the way back to Okina tonight, and a couple of us were going to go to dinner. You could come along and meet her; none of them would mind.”

Oddly enough, Goro found himself tempted by the offer. His admiration for Shirogane Naoto wasn’t a lie; she’d come far, overcoming both her age and her gender to become a fine and respected detective. But the idea of having to spend time with a whole group of Kujikawa-san’s ‘friends’ was intimidating, and he had a meeting to attend, regardless.

“My apologies. I’d like to, but I have a meeting that I cannot avoid this evening. Perhaps another time?” he said, hoping he looked regretful enough.

Rise pouted. “Aw, that’s a shame. I think you and Naoto-kun would get along really well. But I understand. Next time she’s in town, I can try to get ahold of you, if you want.”

“That would be nice. Thank you, Kujikawa-san.” Goro bid his farewells and finally left the TV station, letting his smiling facade slip a bit. She wouldn’t remember. It was all just pleasantries between two people who were dependant on their friendly appearances. If he ever got to meet Shirogane Naoto, it would be through sheer coincidence. And did he really _deserve_ to meet her, when most of his detective skill was because he could talk answers out of people’s shadows?

***

It was an uneventful train ride over to the SIU headquarters, and he made his way up to the director’s office absently. He didn’t know what the man wanted; hopefully it wasn’t another request for a psychotic breakdown this soon.

When he entered the office, the director was seated at his desk, and there was a woman standing there that Goro felt like he had seen before, but he couldn’t place her. As he racked his memory, trying to recall why she seemed so familiar, the director spoke.

“Ah, Akechi-kun, thank you for coming. This is Niijima Sae, one of my brightest rookie prosecutors. Niijima-san, this is Akechi Goro.”

“The Detective Prince, right?” Sae said. She offered him a hand. “Forgive me, you look younger in person than you do on TV.”

Goro took her hand, flashing a winning smile. “People tell me that all the time. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Niijima-san. Are we going to be working together?”

The director folded his hands, nodding even though the question had been posed to Sae. “Niijima-san has been looking into the ‘sudden mental shutdowns’ that have been occurring lately. She’s been drawing parallels between those incidents and the psychotic breakdowns that you have been investigating for the police, and was hoping to get your opinion on a few things. That’s why I asked you here.” He leveled a pointed look at Goro, and Goro bit back a strong urge to take a step back. He could feel Shido through that look, reminding him that he needed to use every bit of charisma to keep this woman from getting too close to the truth. Otherwise, she might have to...crack under the strain of the investigation.

“I’m happy to help,” he said. “Perhaps we can discuss over some food? It’s been quite a long day for me, and I know a quiet cafe over on Cat Street in Shibuya.” He’d only been there once, mostly so he could bring it up at times like these, but she didn’t need to know that.

“That actually sounds good. I can drive, if you can give directions,” Sae offered. They bid their farewells to the director, promising him a full report of what they figured out later, and headed towards the parking deck.

“Oh, will my bike fit in the trunk?” Goro asked as they headed downstairs. “I bike most everywhere these days.”

Sae shook her head. “Unfortunately not, but I can bring you back here afterwards to get it. It’s no trouble.”

“Ah, thank you.” He was having trouble getting a read on Sae. Other than her initial surprise about his age, she wasn’t treating him like a child. But he also didn’t feel like she respected him completely. She was another adult that he needed to prove himself to.

***

The cafe was as quiet as promised, and each of them got a cup of coffee and a small pastry before settling in to talk. Goro waited for Sae to make the first move, not sure what, exactly, she was going to lead with, and finally she sighed.

“So, these mental shutdowns that have been happening… I’ve been trying to find a way to tie them together. From what I understand, you’re attempting to do the same with the psychotic breakdowns. Have you had any luck?” she asked.

Goro stared into his coffee, considering how to answer, and settled for a hapless chuckle. “Not yet. Honestly, I’m not sure why they think there’s anything to tie them together. It isn’t as though someone is running around drugging them to go mad. It would be just as easy, though likely cliché, to say that there is something in the water. But, whatever my superiors want, I suppose. If I can figure out how to stop more from occurring, at least, that would be enough.” Taking a sip of his drink, he turned his gaze on the prosecutor at last. “What makes you think that the deaths you are investigating are anything other than ordinary? Why refer to them as ‘mental shutdowns’?”

“I started with Minister Miyashiro’s death. He supposedly had a stroke, but according to his doctor he was in perfect health despite his age,” Sae explained. “I’ve been working backwards from there, looking for suspicious deaths. Especially ones reported as heart attacks and the like. It will be difficult to prove, but I have a feeling. Healthy people don’t just collapse out of nowhere.”

“Who else have you considered?” Goro asked. If Isshiki Wakaba’s name came up, the chance that he would have to put a stop to this went up exponentially. There was already a journalist on his list who was getting a little too close to one of Shido’s pawns in the Diet. He really didn’t have to want to add anyone else just for poking their nose where it didn’t belong.

Sae stirred her coffee absentmindedly as she thought. “There was the CFO of that television company a few months ago… He supposedly had a heart attack, but when I spoke to people that knew him they said that nothing about his lifestyle would indicate that he was in danger of one. At least one celebrity that collapsed unexpectedly. He supposedly fell into his pool and drowned, which would be an unfortunate accident, but there were no injuries, no evidence of any sort of stroke or heart attack, and no alcohol or drugs were found in his system, which means there’s no reason a fall would have incapacitated him to the point that he would have just laid there and drowned. There are a few others, but I’d have to retrieve the files from my office.”

No mention of Isshiki Wakaba, and that would be an important one just based on what she had been researching before her death, so Goro could only conclude that Sae didn’t know about her. Shido’s plan to convince the world it had been a suicide was a rousing success so far.

“That’s quite an impressive deduction,” he said. “It certainly makes sense, the way that you’ve laid it out, especially the celebrity. But as with my cases, there doesn’t appear to be anything linking these people together that would cause them to be ‘targets’, as it were.” And there really wouldn’t be. Shido had begun taking requests from his most loyal cooperators for targets, so the pattern wouldn’t lead back to a single culprit even if Sae could find them all. “Regardless, Niijima-san, if there is anything I can do to help in the future, I would be quite pleased to work with you.” That way he could keep an eye on how she was progressing, at least.

“Thank you, Akechi-kun.” She smiled at him, and Goro felt a sudden jolt of recognition. He knew where he’d seen her, now. Over a year ago, in the SIU director’s Palace. The animal tamer who was brand-new at her job, who had been so kind to him. How far she’d come since then.

Is this what people meant, when they talked about fate?

He offered a tiny, genuine smile in return. “Anytime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Veteran Purse-Owner Scorecard:  
> Akechi - 1 *** Akira - 3
> 
> Akechi, stop turning down the friends I try to throw at you. X’’’D You were this close, damn it.
> 
> I'd like to think Akechi likes Sae at least a little, even if his actions on 11/20 contradict that a bit. :/
> 
> Anyway, there’s one chapter left before we end this and start P5, and that belongs to Akira, who has been living an ordinary middle/high school life this whole time and is about to careen headfirst into the wall of literally everyone’s disappointment.
> 
> (Please picture, if you will, a pleasant September wedding, elegant and tasteful at the Meiji Shrine, followed by Mitsuru having rented out an entire club for the reception and all of them getting absolutely smashed and proving that they deserve a dance game. If I ever conjure enough up to write, I’ll give the wedding its own oneshot. XDD)


	19. February-April, 2016

Jail was as cold and unforgiving as he’d always pictured it.

Akira sat as far back as he could from the bars, knees pulled to his chest on the narrow cot. They’d taken his bag, all of his schoolwork, his phone… He’d gotten a single phone call to call his parents, and his mother had sounded shocked and angry when he’d told her where he was. He was already bracing for disappointment and fury.

He’d been walking home from cram school when he’d heard the fight. Gymnastics was something he’d abandoned once he reached high school, unable to deal with his parents’ subtle insinuations that he should be working harder, to go to the Olympics or something like other kids from his chosen high school had. He’d nipped that in the bud by not even trying out for the team, citing a need to focus on his studies. So his parents paid for a decent cram school in the evenings five days a week.

He could barely remember what the man looked like, even though it had only been a few hours. Panic and adrenaline had robbed the entire thing of detail, and it had all happened so fast. One minute he was shoving a drunken man away from a woman, and the next he was being dragged into a police car, pleading for help.

_No, they’re lying, I didn’t do it! Please, help me, tell them, tell them...!_

But she hadn’t. The woman he’d tried to save had watched fearfully as he was shoved into the car and taken away, and Akira had retreated into himself, shell-shocked and knowing that the officers weren’t going to listen to anything he said. They’d tossed him in a cell without asking any more questions, and he was just hoping his parents were actually on the way.

When his parents did appear on the other side of the bars, escorted by an officer, his mother called, “Akira! Are you all right?” and for a brief moment he was relieved, nodding. All he wanted was to be told everything was going to be okay. But his mother continued, “What have you _done?_ Your bail is five-hundred thousand yen, there are going to be fines and court costs, we don’t have that kind of money!”

Akira flinched, burying his face in his knees for a second to get his breathing under control. When he heard the cell being unlocked, a tiny bit of that relief flickered back to life. Costly bail or not, they weren’t leaving him in here, and he got to his feet awkwardly.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, hoarse from fear and shock. “That guy was drunk; he fell when he tried to hit me…”

“There’s a _witness_ , Akira,” his father said sternly. “She’s claiming that you attacked that man, and he’s got a head injury. He had a private clinic check him over for a concussion, and he’s pressing charges.”

Akira swallowed hard, and said nothing. There was nothing to say, other than to keep telling them that he hadn’t done anything wrong, and clearly that wasn’t going to help. He numbly accepted his belongings when they were returned, answering every question with a nod or shake of his head. The drive home was silent, and when they arrived, his mother said, with a tone that suggested she was exhausted just looking at him, “You’d best go to bed. This is going to be a long few weeks.”

Akira stood there for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of asking for a hug, and decided that ultimately it wasn’t worth it. “Okay. Good night.”

Every step up the stairs felt like there were things clawing and dragging at his feet, and he dropped his bag by the door and stumbled to his bed. In his room, surrounded by familiar scenery, the entire evening felt like a bad dream. He was going to wake up in the morning and go to school, and none of this would have happened.

He changed into his pajamas, crawling into bed and pulling the blankets tight around him. But with the lights out, familiar scenery wasn’t enough, and the gravity of everything threatened to crush him even within the protective cocoon of covers.

“There’ll be a trial,” he whispered to no one. “I can tell them what happened. This is all a mistake…”

But his parents didn’t care, did they? He’d told them the truth, and it hadn’t even mattered. If they weren’t going to try to protect him, why would anyone else? 

Akira curled into a ball, pulled the blankets over his head, and cried.

***

Aggravated assault. That was what they charged him with.

Weeks after the incident, Akira spent most of the trial in nauseated disbelief as the prosecution wove a story of a boy who had happened upon a man and woman on a date, exchanged heated words with the man, and ultimately attacked him. The man himself was not appearing at the trial, some sort of special privilege of how very important he apparently was.

Akira got to speak briefly, telling his version of events, but he couldn’t remember things in crystal-clear detail, and the prosecution had latched onto that mercilessly. If he couldn’t remember the face of the man he attacked, could they really trust his version of events? He had obviously been on some kind of drugs, or drunk himself. The judge was nodding along as if all of that made perfect sense, as if a quiet teenager suddenly deciding to just attack someone was a perfectly normal thing that happened.

But the true nail in the coffin was when they called up the woman who had been witness to the whole thing. She did exactly as the man had ordered, corroborating the version of events where the man was the victim, and not someone who’d tripped over his own feet trying to punch Akira.

That was the last straw.

“You’re lying!” he cried, the words bursting out of him as he shot from his chair. “Tell them what happened! I was trying to help you!”

_Help me!_

“Kurusu-kun, I’m going to have to ask you to sit down, or you will be removed from this courtroom,” the judge said sternly.

Akira sat, but pleaded, “Please, she’s lying because he threatened her! You have to believe me!”

“ _Kurusu-kun,_ if you speak out of turn again, you will be in contempt of court and will be removed.”

His lawyer put a hand on his shoulder, and Akira hunched over, acutely aware of the unfriendly eyes of everyone in the courtroom. Especially his parents, seated behind him. Their eyes were burning into the back of his neck. The disappointment was palpable.

He was forced to be silent for the rest of the trial, as no one asked him anything else. His lawyer put up a valiant defense, but it was as if he’d already been sentenced. It was no surprise when the judge declared him guilty of aggravated assault, coupled with a year’s probation and another million yen in fines and penalties.

Akira continued to say nothing as court was adjourned. He just stared at the woman who had betrayed him, the judge that hadn’t listened, and the prosecutor that had tried to make him a monster with flat, expressionless eyes. When his father came over to put a hand on his shoulder and steer him from the courtroom, he went without argument, listening to his parents discuss how much this whole incident was costing them with an impassive expression.

What more was there to say? It was over.

***

Over the next few days, things got worse.

He went into school the Monday after the trial, prepared for suspicious stares and gossip, but he’d been waylaid before even making it past the entryway and herded into the principal’s office.

“I’m sorry, Kurusu-kun, but you’re being expelled.”

“ _...what?_ ” Akira said in disbelief. “I… Why?”

“We can’t have someone with your sort of record at this school. Your parents are being notified as well. I didn’t think you were going to show up today, otherwise I’d have attempted to do this without making a scene.”

“Why would I _not_ show up?” Akira asked, just barely avoiding making it sound like a demand. “I did every bit of work that was dropped off at my house, I took my exams, of course I’d come back to finish the year!”

“And we’re updating your academic records to show that you did indeed pass your exams and have completed your first year of high school, but you will not be allowed to return back here next year. I apologize.”

_You’re not sorry. Stop pretending. You don’t give a damn about anything but the school’s reputation._ But Akira swallowed the words back and nodded. “Okay. I’ll just...go home, then.”

“I think that would be best. You can speak with your parents about finding a new school for next year.”

Akira choked down a hysterical laugh. This wasn’t going to be a discussion, it was just going to be another opportunity for his parents to scold him for everything that had happened. Finding a new school was going to be a lot of work, especially considering his _false_ record.

The train home was almost empty, everyone already at work or school, and Akira felt overly-conspicuous in his uniform. The last thing he needed was to be stopped and questioned about why he wasn’t in school. That would be a laugh, getting grabbed for truancy when he’d just been expelled. Would they throw him back in juvie? But he made it safely to his front door without anything more than a handful of strange looks, and let himself into the house. He could hear his parents arguing in the living room, and when he stopped in the doorway and said quietly, “I’m home,” his mother turned to look at him with exasperation.

“Go to your room. We’ll discuss this later.”

Akira went. There was nothing to say in his defense, as usual. He was a convicted criminal now. He should feel lucky they hadn’t thrown him out, he supposed.

***

“May I speak to Daisuke-kun, please?”

Akira kicked his feet, phone cradled against his ear with one shoulder as he put his shoes on. Being cooped up in the house was getting lonely, especially after a whole week of not going to school. But now it was the weekend, and he was hoping he could hang out with his friends, at least for a little while. His curfew was six o’clock sharp now. To make sure he didn’t _attack_ anyone else, even though neither of his parents had explicitly said that.

_“Hey, this is Daisuke. What’s up?”_

“Hey, it’s Akira. I was going to go down to the arcade; want to come check out that Gun About thing everyone’s been talking about?” Shoes on, Akira grabbed his keys and headed out.

_“Oh, Akira-kun…”_ Daisuke’s voice was hesitant. _“I, uh… My mom doesn’t really want me hanging around with you anymore.”_

Fear coiled heavily in his guts. “She...doesn’t?”

_“Yeah. Listen, Akira-kun, I’m really sorry, I gotta go.”_

“Oh. Okay…”

There was a click on the other end, and Akira lowered his phone and stared at the screen. _No…_

He tried each of his friends, one-by-one, and they all told him some variation of the the same thing. Their parents didn’t want them around him, they didn’t feel comfortable hanging around with him… Hell, some of them didn’t even answer, and he knew they saw the call because it cut to voicemail after two rings. Akira shoved his phone in his pocket, resisting the urge to just scream in frustration.

He hadn’t even noticed where his feet were carrying him until he looked up, and instead of the arcade over in the shopping district, he was in the alley across from the playground. The blue door, the one he’d spent years looking at but not touching after being told to wait, wasn’t there anymore.

Akira sank to the ground against the wall, wrapping his arms around his knees and burying his face in them, shaking. Even the mystery door had abandoned him. Could he possibly get more alone than that?

***

The second day of April was bright and sunny, but Akira spent most of it in bed. Was there really any point in getting up or doing anything? By this point, the whole town knew about his conviction. No matter where he went, judgmental stares and suspicious eyes followed him, so it was easiest to just stay at home, holed up in his room where no one could falsely accuse him of doing anything else.

It was only when his parents arrived home from work that he finally dragged himself downstairs to help make dinner. He was chopping green onions when his mother said, “Oh, Akira, we found you a school to attend when the new year starts.”

“Really?” Akira hadn’t thought, at this point, that any of the high schools in the area would agree to accept him. Literally everyone thought he was some kind of violent delinquent. Or at the very least, anyone that thought otherwise wasn’t speaking up.

His mother nodded. “Shujin Academy was willing to make a spot for you. It’s very last-minute, but they were accommodating.”

“I’ve never heard of that one,” Akira said. “It’s not one of the major ones, is it?”

“It’s in the Aoyama-Ichome neighborhood of Tokyo,” his mother said, and Akira froze.

“Tokyo?”

His mother adjusted the heat on the stove. She wasn’t looking at him. “Yes. A friend of ours spoke to an acquaintance of theirs, and he has a room you’ll be able to stay in for the year, until your probation is over. None of the schools in town would accept a student that was on probation. Even Shujin is only accepting you on the basis that you not cause any trouble.”

“You’re _sending me away?_ ” Akira questioned, his voice cracking.

“Akira, it’s for the best. No school in town would accept you, and won’t it be better to stay somewhere where everyone doesn’t know what you did? You’ll be able to focus on your studies.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Akira shouted, abandoning the onions and the knife to clench his fists as his frustration boiled over at last. “It would be better if people didn’t look at me like I’m trash because of something _I didn’t do!_ ”

His father walked in from the living room, his voice stern as he said, “Don’t raise your voice at your mother. There are no other options, Akira. You’re going to Shujin, and that’s final.”

Akira stared at them helplessly, then fled the kitchen. He didn’t care about dinner; he’d eat instant noodles later if he had to, but he didn’t want to have to look at his parents right now. At the end of everything, after everyone else had abandoned him, his parents were abandoning him, too.

_Why won't you believe me?_

He wasn’t religious, outside of the usual practices of visiting the shrines and festivals on the appropriate days. And he definitely wouldn’t consider that a form of religion. It was a tradition, a good-luck charm, things like that.

But he was certain, now, that he knew what Hell was. And it wasn’t some mythical land of punishment. It was right here on Earth, eating him alive. There was no one left. No one was going to tell him that things would be okay. He was leaving for a city of strangers, apparently in a matter of days, and that was that.

The idea terrified him. He was going to spend a year alone, living in a room provided by someone who would almost certainly be told why he was there. He could try to make new friends, but he couldn’t trust them not to leave when they found out why he was at Shujin and not in his hometown. And he certainly wouldn’t be able to count on his parents, not after this.

But it didn’t matter. His fears were meaningless. The decision had already been made.

So he buried himself back in his bed and buried his words inside his heart.

And said nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An important thing to note is that Akira's POV is biased. Akira’s parents do love him, and they don't actually think he attacked Shido. But their frustration with the situation is bleeding through, too, and it’s making Akira think that they just flat-out don’t care, which isn’t true. They do have a point, that going somewhere where he doesn’t have to be judged on a daily basis by his neighbors would probably be a good thing. Too bad Kamoshida fucked that up in the span of a day.
> 
> Akira and his parents are going to need to have a major talk at the end of P5.
> 
> On that note, this chapter marks this section of the tale as complete. From here, we move into P5 proper, so I can finally start helping these kids instead of making them sad all the time. Normally I’d say to give me a bit to get things ready, but that would probably end up being a lie like it usually is, so I won’t bother. ^_^ I’ve got some pretty solid chunks of what I want to do for P5 written already, so hold onto your butts. (Although, as usual, I’m at a loss for a title.)
> 
> And, again...thank you guys so much. I honestly wasn’t expecting to end up here from the starting point of “I want an excuse for Ryoji to be alive”, and I definitely wasn’t expecting so many of you to be along for the ride on this self-indulgent party bus. XD But thank you, for everything, for all the comments and discussions and kudos and everything. It’s...so incredibly rewarding, in a way I haven’t felt writing fic in a long time. I know I’ve said all of this before, but I want to keep reiterating it to you guys. Thank you, so much.
> 
> See you in P5! ;)


End file.
